Pre-Vol6 Abandoned RWBY Dimensional Cinema!
by SirAttlich
Summary: Title says it all, really. Decided to put it back so you can see the story in all of it's rough, unedited messy glory as a means of comparison between this and the new version. Hope you enjoy tearing this fic a new one and, as always, all chapter requests are denied. Also, if you haven't figured it out - this version is discontinued. Dead. Muerte. Deader than the dodo bird.
1. Chapter 1

_Team RNJR._

_Yang._

_Weiss._

_Blake._

_Uncle Qrow._

_Oscar._

_And the suddenly dimmed lights of the entrance to the Haven's academy that was ,coincidentally, also the entrance to the Spring Maiden Vault. The atmosphere of the room became dark..._

_...suffocating..._

_...grimm..._

_Evil._

_A tall figure, all dressed in black, emerged near the Huntsmen, slowly forming into that of a woman with pure white skin color, white braids and red eyes that were covered by a abyssal black sclera, along with purple veins on her face._

_The woman's arms and fingers were bent in such an unnaturally creepy way that it looked like it almost had no bones in it's limbs whatsoever._

_The scream was the last thing she remembered._

LINEBREAK

"AAAHHH!"

Ruby jolted as she suddenly woke up, the fear and panic still etched in her mind after witnessing the horrifying scene that seemingly ended the battle of Haven. 'Seemingly' being the appropriate word because, when she composed herself for a few seconds and looked around her, she couldn't recognize the spacious room she found herself in.

Pitch black walls and ceilings were contrasted with the common white lamps that effectively lit up the whole room. In front of her was a large, wide, rectangular screen that looked like some sort of a high-quality cinema projection screens, as she noticed that the screen was perfectly flat and white, like it was a shinning example of the word 'flawless'.

The next thing she noticed was that she woke up in a sitting position. Ordinarily, waking up while sitting would usually mean the back pain that would shortly arrive after being asleep in a position that was not meant to sleep in.

However, the chair she was sitting in was quite comfy and soft and, upon quick hand inspection, realized that she could switch the angle of the chair from a sitting to a diagonal, semi-lying position.

Realization of her being in an unknown place struck her shortly as Ruby stood up from the comfortable chair. The sight of multiple cinema seats was the first thing Ruby noticed as she turned behind, and looked in various directions.

'_Hmm, let's see...1,3,5,9,15, aaaandd...33 seats? If this is some sort of a cinema, there would've been a lot more than tat. Weird.'_

Ruby also noticed how the seats were colored and positioned. By colors and the space between by them, she divided the chairs into 3 groups - White, Gray and Black.

The chair she was sitting in moments ago was one of the White chairs, which only confused Ruby a bit, so she decided to drop the whole color theory scheme. The positioning of the seats was interesting, as there were 22 White seats, the first 3 rows had 7 seats respectively, and the last one was on the top of the White chairs.

The last one, Ruby noticed, was actually quite big and spacious, and it almost resembled...

_'Hey, I know this! It's a 'Couples-Only' seat! But... for who?'_

So it was actually 23 White seats, with the whole being 34 seats in general. The next group were the Gray seats, were the first row was occupied by one seat, while the row above had two seats.

_'Ooookay, whoever designed the seat order was probably either lazy, or... had some super secret agenda in plan!'_

The last group were the Black seats, the first row having four, the second three, and the third had one seat that stood above the two rows.

_'Alright, now to find others! I do hope they aren't hurt.'_

"Don't worry, Miss Rose, all of your teammates and friends are in perfect health."

Ruby quickly turned around and tried to pinpoint the source of the unknown voice. As she instinctively reached her hand behind her back to grab her weapon, she realized something.

Crescent Rose wasn't there.

Ruby took the next course of action and lifted her fists in a combative style, ready to face any opponent that might come after her.

_'Only if it isn't that big, angry guy with a grudge against Headmaster Ozpin. Then I'll be in a LOT of trouble.'_

"No need to get worried. Mister Rainart is fine and won't pose a problem to you or anyone in that matter."

Ruby wasn't sure if the voice was truthful or not, so she remained vigilant and didn't let her guard down.

"Where are my friends? What did you do to them?"

The unknown voice chuckled at the statement, almost sounding as if it is amused.

"Your friends should be here right about...now."

And just as the voice finished the sentence, a small flash of light that was accompanied by a quick 'ping' sound, and in the next moment - all the seats were taken by their now quite confused occupants.

"WAUGH!"

"W-What happened?"

"AGH! Where... am I?!"

"Well, this is most...unexpected."

But there was one voice that actually stood out among the other, confused voices. A voice that emanated a tone of disbelief, surprise, and...

"P-Pyrrha?"

Happiness?

LINEBREAK

Jaune Arc couldn't believe his eyes.

In one moment he was fighting for his and his friend's lives against the enemy, and in the next moment he was sitting in front of a girl he thought he lost forever...the girl whose life he did not manage to save due to his incompetence and inability to do anything back then...and the girl, whose feelings he never had a chance to...

"Jaune...I..."

No. This is just a cruel trick his mind is playing on him. It had to be, and yet...Jaune reached out his hand and rested on Pyrrha's shoulder, and actually felt something.

A soft warmth.

The brief touch quickly turned into a tight hug Jaune enveloped Pyrrha in, holding her tightly, almost like he didn't want for her to slip and leave, never to return.

Like last time.

The Invincible Girl was caught off guard a bit, but was quick to return the hug as she enveloped the boy she loved in her arms.

This was a moment that both of them wanted to last, perhaps forever.

"Oh get a room, you two!"

Both of the 'lovers' and all present in the room got their attention at the voice in middle, showing no one other than-

"Torchwick!" Ruby yelped, her finger pointing at her former adversary.

The self-proclaimed master theif and the kingping of crime didn't got the time to respond at as he got his own smothering snuggle by a girl with half-pink, half-brown hair and actually managed to get down on the floor.

"Uh, Ruby... what's going on?"

Oscar was confused by the whole situation. In one moment they were fighting for their lives, and in the next - they simply appeared here, with no explanation whatsoever!

"I have no idea, Os..."

"OZPIN!"

A towering familiar voice boomed throughout the room, and all of the current occupants turned to see a very, VERY pissed off Hazel, who was standing from the Black seats and looked like he was ready to gut the boy.

"NOTHING WILL NOW STAND IN MY WAY! I WILL KILL YOU HERE AND N-" Hazel was however cut off by the same voice that he planned to silence.

"Leave the boy alone, Hazel. He is not your source of anger anymore."

The calm and reasoning voice belonged to no other than the Beacon Headmaster Ozpin...in the flesh. Ruby and Oscar, alongside the other members who are the participants in the secret war against Salem, were shocked to see the Headmaster of Beacon alive and well.

Ozpin's sudden appearance only added fuel to the fire that was Hazel's hatred. But Hazel Rainart was not the only one who were 'unpleasently' surprised by the sight of Ozpin.

Salem always prefered to see her enemies either dead or quivering on their knees, and thus she was definitely not happy when her rival wasn't in neither of those states.

The Grimm master wasn't the only one, if Cinder Fall's scowl was anything but a hint. She personally made sure that Ozpin was grinded down to nothing, since she had that kind of opinion of him. And she will be glad to do so again. That, however, could be a problem, as both Hazel and Cinder realized one thing.

They were completely unarmed and powerless.

Hazel immediately noticed it when he searched his pockets for any Dust crystals to use, while it took Cinder a bit while to realize that she couldn't summon the power of the Fall Maiden. Add insult to injury, she couldn't even feel the power in her.

And that fact completely terrified her.

While Emerald was estatic to see her mistress alive, especially since she immediately thought that Cinder was dead when she saw the blonde bimbo holding the artifact - Sustrai could immediately recognize that it was one of those moments where Cinder was not to be distracted with anything, less if she wants a large fireball right in the face.

"While I do love a good brawl, especially a one where I'm not involved in, I am sorry to inform you all that that kind of activity is NOT on our schedule. I'd advise you to control your anger Mr Reinart, because nothing good will come out of it, and you really would not like it when my hand is forced. That applies to everybody here too.

The voice sounded like it was getting closer, and as everyone turned their attention to the source to see who is the mysterious speaker.

"Okay, I honestly didn't expected that." Nora sounded unimpressed, and with pretty good reason, as before them stood a boy dressed in casual clothing consisting of a pair of grey socks, relaxed blue trousers and a black t-shirt with...a very familiar image on it.

So familiar that Ruby raised an eyebrow in a slight combination of suprise and confusion and muttered: "Hey, is-is that me on your shirt?"

The black shirt had a red figure that had a scythe that closely resembled a silhouette of Crescent Rose in a walking position, rose petals covering the trail behind her, and the space below the figure were covered with the red colored letters RWBY.

The figure chuckled at the young Huntress-in-training.

"Why yes. Yes it is. Now..." The figure took a few steps and stood straight in the middle, with all of the seats in his view.

"Before I start anything, I would like to inform all of the cripples here - you just received... a miracle!" The figure raised his arms over his head like some sort of a priest.

Yang was confused at first, but a quick glance to her right explained it all. Her arm, her own flesh and blood arm, was there! She held it, and there it was - like nothing ever happened. Fingers moving, wrist turning and the warmth that radiated from it was enough to convince Yang that she wasn't armless.

Mercury already knew that his legs felt different, and only confirmed his suspicions after a quick touch and squeeze. He couldn't say that he wasn't dissapointed - having your own legs is a nice feeling after all, but he would always pick his prosthetics over his actual legs.

Maybe he just got used to them.

Cinder on the other hand was still in shock after her own revelation of being powerless. But she couldn't say she wasn't at least relieved that she got her actual arm back with the face that wasn't horrendously scarred. Her hair even grew back to it's original length!  
At least some good came out of this.

"We all good? Good. Now, you may be all wondering - why are we here? Well, for starters, let me ask you this..."

"Do you believe in destiny?"

The out of the blue question raised some eyebrows. Pyrrha looked at the guy, a bit suprised at his question and unsure if she should answer. On the other side, Cinder malevolently gazed at the speaker, waiting for him to speak, as if he asked a rhetorical question.

"Personally, I believe it's a pile of horseshit. You are the 'Chosen One', you are destined to fulfill the prophecy, to save the world and other overused stuff that simply makes me want to vomit."

The Huntsmen-in-training teams, alongside Roman and Neo, snickered at the remark, while the older and a bit more sinister members remained silent, wondering what this...boy would say next.

"Destiny didn't do much good to you, now did it, Nikos, hm?" Pyrrha's posture went on the defensive at the comment, but she couldn't deny that it actually was true - groomed to be the best, never actually being normal and fated to die without any chance of obtaining what she truly desired.

Her teammates and friends all had mixed feelings about that - some of anger and guilt, and some of remorse as they all shifted in their seats.

"But hey, everything, no matter how bad it is, has a silver lining! You see, to counter the stupid thing, we, or to be fair - I have a good, good thing, or should I say things called infinite timelines."

Almost everyone was baffled in the room. The theory of infinite timelines and how they work is supposed to be only but mere fiction in made-up stories.

Through the waves of confused voices, one managed to stand out of it's own. And it was the voice which belonged to Salem's closest adviser Arthur Watts.

"Do you perhaps have any legitimate proof to support your claim?"

The boyish figure smirked and looked down to his own feet, but he never broke the focus between the 'audience' and him.

"Your existence here is enough proof as it is. As to why you are here, well, I'll try to explain it as in much detail I can, so that you can understand everything. Now, as I said, there are infinite timelines with infinite possibilities of the outcomes of your world

For an example, somewhere there exists a timeline where Pyrrha survived her encounter with Cinder, or where Roman managed to wiggle his way out of the Griffon, or where even a totally new character appears and pretty much screws everything."

"Now just wait a minute! How could you possibly know all that?!" Roman pointed a finger at the guy in front of him like an interogator. The sole figure in front of the kingpin had a wide smile on his face and said:

"You could say that I've been following you all for quite a while. Your adventures, your fights, your personal problems. Too put it in short terms - I. Know. Everything.

"Woah there! Are you some kind of stalker or something?" Neptune also raised a finger, his voice betraying him that he was a tad bit uncomfortable, to which the boy just laughed.

" 'Stalker' is too strong a word. I'd prefer the term 'viewer', as I was...observing your lives in a manner similar to watching a TV show."

The self named 'viewer' could already see some worried faces among the audience members.

"Don't worry, not ALL of your life moments. Even we 'viewers' have our limits and boundaries to what we can and can't watch."

"We? There are more people like you?" Ironwood asked.

"A lot more. And you know the infinite timelines I talked about earlier?" The guy stretched his arms wide, like he was a merchant that was showing off his goods.

"We have them at our disposal. So, before you get outraged and start telling on how inhumane that is - no, we as viewers do not have any control of your MAIN timeline. That is ran by...the higher ups."

Mercury's raised an eyebrow to that statement and asked:

"Higher ups?"

"Your creators, the ones that weave your fates. They're the ones who decide how the story goes and finishes, who lives and dies. Most of the other timelines are defined by the main one, but not all of them." the figure further explained.

"So you are telling me that we are not the MAIN versions of ourselves right now?" Qrow said.

Qrow's implication stirred up some of the audience members. Before anyone could voice their opinion, Weiss stood up and started to rant in an angered manner: "You think that gives you the RIGHT to tamper with us?! To kidnap us all here?!"

The boy scratched his head a bit, but his smile didn't falter at the accusation.

"Hmm, it does kinda sound awful when you put it that way...no, you are not. And yes, that gives me full right to do that.

Buuuuuuut, I do not like to do that, since I'm not that much of a sadist. I much more prefer to...observe. Alas, when I was watching your timeline, I did notice that something was quite...well, let's say wrong with it.

Cracks started popping up left and right, which was something that you could not see. They started pretty much the moment Ruby unleashes her ocular power.

What sealed the deal is when Emy here",the guy nodded at Emerald, who was currently at the Black seats,"performed quite a nifty illusion trick with Salem. Your timeline then got shattered and your would've been reduced to nothing, like you didn't exist in the first place. So, I brought you here!"

"Why would you...save us? Do you gain something by doing that?"

The question that was asked came from Salem herself, and Ozpin, in such rare occasions, couldn't helped to agree with his enemy - why would he do that?

The boy put his palms together and stretched his fingers towards the audience.

"It's quite simple, really - I like you guys!"

An answer that was as unexpected as it was...pleasant? Whatever it was, it did bring a few smiles and a lot of confused looks.

'An altruistic reason isn't quite unbelievable as it may seem. But still...' Ozpin held up his chin. It was true that good Samaritans weren't that uncommon. However, hundreds of years of experience taught Ozpin that he shouldn't always take things as they are in the moments notice.

Never judge a book by it's cover, they said.

"You like us? Like, like us, or like-like us? Or even really really like-like us?" Nora jumped and put her palm on her chin in wonder.

"Eh, normal like. I empathize and sympathize with you, to the point that I actually understand you. Well, most of you, if I'm being honest.

Anyway, I'm now currently repairing your whole timeline, so that you will all be returning to your timeline, which is the good news, or bad news for some. Now, the bad, or good news, is that the repair is gonna take quite a long time."

"Can't you speed up the process?" Raven asked, and the boy couldn't help but notice that the Spring Maiden's impatience. He was almost inclined to respond in a sarcastic manner, but he controled himself.

For now.

"Nah, the process is natural and cannot be tampered with, no matter what I do. Meaning, you are stuck here. But!" The figure raised his index finger up and went towards the blank screen.

"During your stay here, I will try to entertain you as much as I can by showing the potential timelines that could've occurred had something been different in the world of Remnant."

"Oh, oh! Is there one where we are super heroes?" Nora asked cheerfully.

"Super heroes, ninjas, musicians, villains - you name it! Now, I'm off to set the show. I'll leave you to alone, so please TRY at least not to kill one another while I'm not here. Also, take this short time to, heh, make up for lost time, aaaa WINK!" The guy smiled and winked at the 'Couple seat' occupants, to which one of the said occupants blush was the same color as her hair, while the other started laughing nervously and was scratching his head.

"Wait! Before you go, please tell us how do we call you? What is your name?" Ruby asked, to which the guy gazed at her with all the swagger he could obtain to look serious...before he burst out laughing at the attempt.

"I go by many names, nicknames and titles, but you can call me - Bob."

To which Yang burst out of laughter, and others joining her too, since - well, who the hell names their kid - or themselves Bob?

"I'm off now guys, and please - do get comfortable here.

Shoot, I almost forgot the official greeting! Ahem.

Welcome to my Dimensional Cinema - hope you have a wonderful time! Ninja vanish!" Bob said as he threw a smoke bomb at his feet and disappeared from plain sight.

The pregnant pause that came after Bob's disappearance was broken by Ruby who thought out loud:

"Why do I have a feeling that I've seen that somewhere before...?"


	2. Chapter 2

"I!

AM!

HERE!"

The booming voice of Bob who appeared in front of his audience in a blur, his smile still on his face, penetrated the room as everybody turned around towards him.

"So, y'all managed to work out some issues?" Bob asked.

The main reason Bob vanished(though he would never admit that to his guests) is that he wanted to give them a chance to work out some...issues between them. After all, he DID pull the majority out in the middle of combat. Safe to say, everyone had a thing or two to say to everybody else.

Yang didn't know if she should be still mad at Blake or not. Sure running back to her parents in Menagerie to solve some family related issues and potentially stop the White Fang were good reasons, but she could at very least notify her!

But the blonde also knew when to let go, and the fact that Blake was genuinely sorry for that helped ease her anger.

Pyrrha felt a bit of relief that Ruby managed to keep the rest of team JNPR together after her death. And there was also the problem of her...well, way of saying goodbye when she went to her inevitable death. She expected of Jaune to be mad, and for good reason.

But the blonde knight forgave her, though not easily. He was a bit upset at her, but the fact that she was with him now meant more than a grudge against the (former) dead.

Emerald was also very happy to see her mistress being fully recovered and healed, just like before that little bitch tore her apart with those silver eyes of hers. Mercury simply stated that he was glad that his boss was alive, which was a slight understatement, since he was actually relieved as there was no one else who could fully trust at Salem's castle.

Some revelations weren't quite that pleasant unfortunately, but not surprising.

First was Neo, who actually had a plan to kill Ruby Rose because she believed that the young Huntress was the cause of Roman's death. What was surprising was that Roman quickly told her how he actually died, baffling Ruby.

"Uh, why are you defending me Torchwick? Aren't we supposed to be, you know - mortal uh, enemies?"

Roman could only laugh at her sentence, as if someone told him a very good joke. He quickly assumed his usual calm and collected expression. He responded:

"Don't kid yourself Red - I didn't do that for you. Holding a grudge is very...unhealthy, even more so when it's based on false facts."

And then there was the issue between Yang and Raven...and Yang telling every White seat member her mom was the true Spring Maiden. The Headmaster of Beacon could only sigh at the information he was given, and spoke:

"I would normally commend your cunningness, Mrs Branwen. Do tell me, however, how did you obtain the Maiden's power?"

Raven found herself in a tight spot now, and she ultimately did what she did best.

She closed her eyes and turned her face away from Ozpin and everybody else.

"Tch. Why am I not surprised?" Qrow said, his glare of contempt trying to reach his sister.

Taiyang, on the other hand, pinched the bridge of his nose while trying to contain some of the pent up anger at his former lover. He said:

"For the love of everything, just tell me why, Raven? I know what you're capable of, but I didn't imagine you would stoop this low."

"Wait, wait, wait! What did she do?" Ruby was a bit confused and asked away, but was obviously ignored by Raven, who said:

"I did what I had to. What would you do if you were in my position?"

"I definitely wouldn't kill an innocent person, if that's what you're asking!" Yang erupted, her lilac eyes turning red, even without any Aura.

Yang's teammates were stunned at the revelation, and they all started to glare daggers at Raven. Except Ruby, who had a small tear running down her cheek, as she meekly said:

"H-How...How could you?

Raven turned her head around to face Ruby.

"She could've never survived the outside. She was weak!"

"Might makes right, eh?"

The sentence came from Bob, as he approached them and positioned himself in between the White and the Gray seats.

"A philosophy that is often recanted upon meeting a more powerful adversary - am I right, Branwen?"

Raven knew where Bob was aiming at now, and by her tribe - she won't take any shit from him too.

"It was the smart thing to do. And you know that. After all, didn't you say that you watched us? And that you understand us too?" Raven asked, her eyelids narrowing down at Bob. The Cinema host immediately responded with:

" I said I understand you - I did NOT say that I approve those actions. You claim yourself to be strong and smart. But you are nothing more than a hypocrite who tries to fool herself that she's right and the whole world is wrong."

_"Who are you trying to convince?"_

Raven bit her lip. Words of that traitor Lionheart still echoed inside her mind, and the fool in front of her tells the same thing, only with different words.

"And by the way, Lionheart is dead. Killed by Salem, no less. Just because he wasn't useful to her anymore."

The info came as a shock to Qrow, Ozpin, Oscar and team RNJR. Sure, the Headmaster of Haven did betray them, but their plan was to deliver him to justice. Even if he was forced to do some things against his will.

Raven did not take the information well, as she perceived it as only one thing.

Salem and her croonies would've never respected their end of the deal. Her tribe would be wipped out. Or worse. If she ever got out of this room, she would have do some major packing up.

"I actually kinda feel sorry for the poor sod, even if he was a traitorous coward. But here's the thing - he had NO ONE to turn to. Mistral is a far away place, and it was clear as day that good ol' Leo was the weakest link. Watts probably cut off his comms and Salem did the rest. So you could say that he had no other choice, other than to save his own skin.

YOU on the other hand, even with the shaky relationship you had with your family, you still had someone you could turn to. And yet you made your choice not to. But, then again, it is only human to commit sin!" Bob said as he started chuckling in a very sarcastic way.

"Let's change the mood, shall we? Salutations Penny!" Bob said with a soldier-like wave and a wink at the robot girl, who responded:

"Sa-lu-tations Mister Bob!"

"Please, remove the Mister - makes me feel older than I already am." Bob responded with a now genuine chuckle, as he knew what was about to happen next.

Ruby was also very estatic to see Penny alive and well. So estatic, that she jumped from her seat and tackled the android girl. Of course, Ruby being Ruby, she started apologizing immediately, to which Penny, in her own direct way, said that it wasn't a problem at all.

Apparently, Penny didn't have the slightest idea of what happened after the match between her and Pyrrha started. Uncertainty started to rise among the crowd of the White seat, especially around students. Pyrrha was ashamed of herself, as the only thing that stopped her from speaking out the truth was her fear of the robotic girl's reaction to it.

She didn't had to fear for long, as Bob stepped in and said:

"Well, you got sliced'n'diced by Pyrrha over there." Everyone was shocked at his bluntness, while Penny sported a confused look on her face.

"But technically, it was Emy over there's fault, since the little whore put an illusion on her and Pyrrha couldn't see what was in front of her. So yeah - the blame is on the dark-skinned bitch over there." Bob casually said as he pointed at Emerald with his thumb. The thief didn't take kindly to insults, especially from people who acted all high and mighty with no supportive evidence. So, as any offended person would do, she stood up and said:

"What's your problem with me, huh?"

What the "dark-skinned bitch" didn't know is that this particular person...

had all the claim to act high and mighty.

Cinder immediately began to uncomfortably shift as the person who took away her powers approached the Black seats. Sure, she hated him and most likely would set him on fire and let him burn to death if she had the chance, but right now she knew - that it isn't wise to poke the beast up close.

"Oh, so the street dog started barking!" Bob said, his smile shifting from the usual, friendly-like type to a more...sadistic one. And at that moment, Emerald knew...

She bit off a little more that she can chew.

Especially since her mistress whispered to her to sit down.

"Well, you see, street dog...you may think that I am bound to some mumbo jumbo rules that prevent me doing anything that I want. But here's the kicker.

There aren't any." Bob said as his smile turned into a wide grin now.

"People say that there are worse things than death. Which is true, mind you. But I still think that those people completely throw off one simple thing out of the window. And that is how you die.

For you, heh , I had a very, VERY, special death planned for you. You see, during the rampage of the Atlesian robots in Vale, I could've made you slip from the roof into a dead end street...with an out of control Paladin standing in front of the only exit.

Here's where I get creative. Aura doesn't nullify the damage you receive - it only mitigates it to an extent. A fall from a 4-story building and landing on hard concrete would still really, really hurt and would even take a nice chunk of your Aura.

So when you fall without properly landing on your feet, you won't be able to recuperate from the damage that quickly. And then the Paladin goes into work.

First you try to fight it off with your hands, since you lost your weapons and, by the laws of the human nature - panic ensued. The Paladin, being the programmed combat robot he is, takes your arm and with the twist of his hands - rips it off! Not from the joints oh no, no, no, no, no. Teared muscle and crushed bone is what it's left of your stump.

You then try to kick it off, to which the Paladin replies by smashing your knee to pieces, your leg having that L shape. You can ask your friend Mercury about that kind of injury!

And finally, you try to block it's blows, but it sees through your desperate act, and as a man who gets his arm violently pulled off by a giant robot...your arm gets violently pulled off by a giant robot.

And then the Paladin proceeds to beat down your ribcage, cracking every rib bone with one. Punch. At. A. Time." Bob emphasized the words by tilting his head left and right a bit.

"And nobody would be there to save you. Perhaps not even to pick up the remains."

Emerald's eyes have widdened a bit. She would've normally scoffed the whole thing off, maybe even cringed a bit at the graphic details. But the truth was that she was completely and utterly terrified.

For that a guy with a stupid name as 'Bob' really did HAVE the power to do that.

The only thing that she could do was carefully and slowly sit down the seat.

"I could've done that, heck - EVERYBODY who is similar to me could've done that! But I still choose to spare your street dog ass and put you here.

So be a little grateful, eh?"

The entire audience went dead silent as Bob finished his speech. A lot of them winced and some points of the story, but the truth is - they were afraid.

And Ozpin knew that this was probably Bob's way of telling each and every one of them that he was the one who was in charge. The Headmaster now trully hoped, for his friends and his students, that he trully did save them out of the goodness of his heart as he claimed before.

Salem was quite intrigued by the young man. If he didn't show his obvious favoritism towards Ozpin's little group, in any other circumstances - she would've asked him to join by her side. But right now, he proved, with words alone, that he can be a potentially dangerous enemy.

Providing that he wasn't bluffing.

Then Salem would trully be dissapointed. Impressed for his act, but still - dissapointed.

_'And I thought I was brutal and merciless...' _Roman thought, unsure of how the whole situation would unfold.

"What... a trully magnicificent description!"

The voice came from no one other but Salem's go to assassin - Tyrian Callows.

"However, I believe that the simile was a bit needless. But the rest of it was perfectly fine, I must say!"

Excluding Salem, Watts and Hazel, as they knew Tyrian the longest(and probably the best), everyone else widdened their eyes as they stared at the scorpion faunus.

They were even moreso shocked by Bob's response.

"Oh dang it! I even told myself that I won't be using those anymore!" Bob said with a facepalm, only to proceed on speaking:

"But thank you! I really appreciate the praise." Bob returned his friendly smile back again.

"Now, I see that you feel a bit uncomfortable now. Save for Tyrian and others, of course. How about we see the first clip?" Bob asked with his opened up palm which looked like it was reaching out to the others. Yang decided to break the ice by saying:

"Is it an action clip?"

"If you think that kicking butts of dragon-like creatures is action, then yes. Oh yes it is." Yang only grinned. Seems like the atmosphere was a little bit lighter now.

LINEBREAK

**[The Dragonslayer]**

LINEBREAK

"Here is a trivia question for y'all - Dragonslayer is also a name of a ship between 2 certain persons here. Can you guess who they are?" Bob asked.

"Ship? As in...?" Ruby asked.

"Love ship! Romance Ruby! I thought that you would know that stuff by now!

And why in Remnant would anyone waste their time on that?!" Weiss asked in her usual sassy way.

"Because nothing is more cuter than seeing two people finally getting together!" Bob shrugged at his own response, to which Nora determinantely pointed her finger in the air, sporting a sure look. said:

"I cannot disagree on that!"

"Says the missus "we're close, but not close-close". Or have you gotten a bit closer, eh?" Bob mischeviously grinned, taking Nora of guard while being frozen in her previous position.

"I believe that is a personal matter." Ren said, which immediately made Nora relax a bit. Yang also went into the fray by saying:

"HA! You didn't deny it!"

"No he did not. Anyway, let the clip commence!"

**The first scene shown a darkened sky colored by various shades of grey and black as if a large amount of ash nested in the clouds, the very land being nothing but rock and dust and the whole eerie feeling that plagued the atmosphere. There was no sound whatsoever, giving the whole imagery a lifeless, dull look of a disaster fallout.**

**The clanking of armor and footsteps were heard shortly, as the scene added a figure, clad in full spiky armor of golden color and a helmet with a large T-slit that somehow managed to shadow the wearer's face. The helmet also sported a large red plume that resembled a ponytail of sorts. The figure had a shield and a spear strapped on its back.**

"Milo and Akouo? Is that me?" Pyrrha asked, unsure if she got the question right.

**[PLAY: One Punch Man - Main Theme]**

"Oooooh! A catchy guitar riff! I like this already!" Nora jovially said with a smirk on her face.

**The screen started distorting a bit, and as the guitar riff started, multiple figures started emerging. The knight turned towards them, equipping both of his weapons. The figures were shown to look like hairy, skinny beasts with lizard-like horned heads.**

"So the title of the clip is 'Dragonslayer'...I have to guess that these are some, uh, hybrids?" Neptune sheepishly said.

"They look a bit skinny for to look anything like dragons though." Qrow bluntly said, to which Glynda added:

"Whatever they are, they don't seem to look to friendly."

**One of the creatures rushed towards the knight, to which he responded by throwing his shield at the Dragonhead. The shield ricocheted of his enemy and returned onto the knight's hand as the warrior jumped and shoved his spear into the creature's torso, instantly killing it.**

"Yep, definitely Pyrrha. Only one person can perfectly do that." Jaune commented, unintentionally making Pyrrha blush a bit at the hidden compliment.

_'Heh, Lady Killer indeed' _Bob thought.

**In the next moment, two of the Dragonheads tried to flank the knight from both sides, to which the knight jumped and performed a back flip and hitting one of them in the jaw, to which the creature was sent flying. The second one tried to claw the knight, only to be responded by being grabbed by the head and then smashed into the ground.**

_'Miss Nikos seems to have even more experience as a fighter here..._

_A true shame, indeed...'_

Ozpin thought, recollecting all of the happenings of the Vytal Festival.

**The last one tried to blast the knight from afar with fire, but the knight reacted in time as he jumped and dodged the fire shot. The knight however, did not jump straight in the air - he jumped towards the Dragonhead. The creature tried to run away, but it met its end by being impaled with the knights spear.**

**Time seemed to slow down as the knight looked above in the sky and saw a massive black dragon flying right above him. After a few moments, the dragon landed right in front of the knight. But the scene was focused on the scene where the dragon looked the knight straight in the eye.**

**The music started again, and the dragon lifted it's head and unleashed a massive blazing inferno upon the knight, to which he could only block with his shield. The knight ran towards the dragon and opposed the fiery wave as he tried to attack it with his spear. The dragon ceased its fire and lifted its head to dodge the attack, to which it tried to counter it with a claw swipe.**

**The human adversary took his chance and exploited the opening between its legs as he ran below him and just as he got behind the dragons back, the knight lunged it with its spear and stabbed it in its back.**

"YEAH! GO FOR IT, PYRRHA! BREAK ITS LEGS! KICK HIS ASS! CRACK HIS SKULL!" Nora screamed as she raised her fist. While Ren and the others who held Nora as a friend chuckled at her antics, other's got a bit wary of her sudden thirst for violence.

Then again, this is Nora we're talking about.

**The dragon, in a fit of rage, tried to shake the knight, however the spear-wielder persisted and to that - the dragon went straight up in the air. After a couple of moments, the knight yanked its spear off as the dragon went in the opposite direction, gaining momentum so that it can charge him mid air.**

**But the knight was prepared and positioned his body properly for a powerful spear throw, as the weapon was glowing in bright orange.**

"Hmm, Explosive Dust inside of a meele weapon? Very situational, but also quite powerful, provided it's in the right hands." Oobleck noted as he readjusted his glasses.

**The knight threw the spear at the oncoming dragon, which exploded upon contact. Time was slowed as the explosion around the dragon's head got progressively bigger, while the knight was turning around his bodyfrom the force of his throw.**

Roman just smiled and said:

"Alright, honestly - gotta give a 10 out of 10 for style there!"

To which Neo held a large piece of paper straight up on which there was a number 10 written on it.

Which confused Mercury to no end, as he asked:

"...From where did she pull that?"

**The music stopped as the knight landed on his feet, and the dragon came crashing on its head, the spear etched into its eye. The screen then turned dark.**

**[END: One Punch Man - Main Theme]**

"That. Was. AWESOME!" Ruby yelped.

"Well, can't argue with that." Blake said.

"Shush, there is something more!" Weiss put her hand towards her teammates as...

**[PLAY: One Punch Man - Main Theme (Piano Cover)*]**

**The scene showed the now deceased dragon and the knight who was sitting on top of it's head. The knight lifts his hands to remove his helmet, as the battle was over for now. The long ponytail that was once blood red, is now colored in gray of age, fell from the helmet which showed the face of a mature, but a beautiful woman. No scars were present on her face, as someone would've said that she was only a pretty face if not for the undeniable experience her eyes radiated with.**

"Time has served Miss Nikos well I see!" Port happily noted, his moustache raising a bit to form a sort of a moustache smile.

"By the color of her hair, facial complexity and lack of any make-up, I have estimated that friend Pyrrha is exactly 54 years old in the motion picture!" Penny jovialy commented, but a detail in her sentence didn't go unnoticed by the Spartan-like girl.

Pyrrha felt relieved and a little bit awkward, as it was now as clear as day that the android girl forgave her for the 'accidental' murder. Though people normally wouldn't so quickly call a person who killed them, unintentionally or not, their friend.

"54? She doesn't look half as bad! Good job Pyrrha!" Yang exclaimed with a thumbs up for her.

**Pyrrha looked in the distance and saw another 3 figures, however - she did not tensed one bit, for she knew who they really were. The first one was a woman wearing a hulking mass of pinkish armor alongside a giant hammer.**

**Nora, even in her old age, still kept the look that was filled with energy. Her hairstyle remained, the color went gray, and her face sported a large scar across her left eye, making her permanently blind on it, if the white of the eye didn't gave any pointers.**

"I have a cool looking awesome-tastic scar! Nice!" Nora yellped, provoking a reaction from Emerald.

"You do know that you are blind to that eye...do you?"

"Ignore Emy, she cannot comprehend the rule of cool." Bob responded, waving his palm at Emy, as if he was shooing her away.

**Ren seemed to look even wiser as time passed by. The black leather armor covered with green metal scales provided enough mobility without sacrificing basic protection. His hair was, like Pyrrha's, tied in a ponytail. His face, however, sported a slim, long beard that was tied with several leather strings.**

"Renny, Renny, Renny! Promise me! Please PROMISE ME that you will..." Nora's erratic request was cut off by Ren's calm voice that said:

"I promise Nora." Ren smiled as he looks at the wide grin his Nor- partner made.

**And finally, their fearless leader. Jaune's hair turned silver, unlike his teammates, and it went full shoulder-length. He had a scar on the left side of his bottom lip - a testimony for the combat experience he got throughout the years. The armor was similar to Pyrhha's, only colored silver with gold linings.**

Pyrrha was left speechless at the sight. Even with all his flaws and quirks, Jaune was always a looker. And it seemed to her, if one is to trust the clip, that characteristic won't change.

I mean, not that good looks was all she's seen in Jaune. There were other things as well, but Pyrrha decided to shut down her imagination before it went rampant.

Meanwhile, Yang burst into laughter at the scene. Jaune being an embodiment of a Silver Fox, now THAT was something she would gladly pay to see.

**Pyrrha could only smile, before she went to join them in an another adventure.**

LINEBREAK

"So, your thoughts?" Bob asked, to which the first one to stand immediately was Ruby, who said:

"That. Was. AWESOME! She went with her spear like SWOOSH! And when she fought the dragon she went BOOM and..." Ruby was cut off by Weiss, who calmly stated:

"It was enjoyable. Quite enjoyable."

"You can say that Ice Princess found the clip to be very cool." Yang joked, but, as always not getting the reaction she exactly wanted (except her dad, who gave off a chuckle at the joke - it was HIS daughter, after all).

What even made the situation a bit more awkward was Bob, who was laughing off his ass, to the point of crying. And after a solid 10 seconds, he rose up, with his laughter still present in chuckles.

"You absolutely have no sense of humor, do you?" Roman asked. Bob finally composed himself and said:

"Oh I do. You just REALLY don't want to know what kind. Anyway, on to the next one!"

LINEBREAK

**[Meet the Nora]**

LINEBREAK

"Yay, we're meeting me! Again!" Nora cheerfully said.

"That...sounded better in your head, didn't it?" Sun noted, to which Nora positively nodded with a smile on her face.

**The scene went to life as it reflected what it seems to be a large warehouse area, with a large table and a cardboard box on it as the main focus right now. Nora Valkyrie appeared in full clad silver armor addorned with pink lines as she gently drops her weapon on the table, crushing the cardboard box in the process. She then said:**

**"Hi! I'm Nora!**

**And THIS is my weapon Magnhild!**

**It's a hammer that can turn into a grenade launcher that has a clip of 6 grenades with a feature of firing all 6 of them at once. The hammer form can be supercharged and is quite heavy itself, so I normally use it to smear people with it!"**

"Weapons are awesome!" Ruby said.

"I know, right?" Nora replied.

**The second scene showed Nora in a incontrollable laughing fit as she said:**

**"AHAHAHAHAGH! SMEAR PEOPLE! HAHAHAH!"**

The actual Nora also started giggling a bit, and not soon Yang and Qrow joined her, alongside Roman and Neo. Mercury and Tyrian also started a laughing fit, only for Mercury to be stopped by a glare from Cinder. Mercury defended himself by saying:

"C'mon! It's funny!"

**The third scene showed Nora sitting on the chair, hands on her legs and a very serious look adorning her face. Nora then slammed her fist on the table in anger while yelling out:**

**"I don't understand...What do I have to do to get him? WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET HIS ATTENTION?!"**

RWBY, JPR, Sun and Neptune just jumped at the sudden outburst of their alternate friend, while Nora only looked down, fully knowing what the other Nora meant by that.

**"*Sniff*...He's even more dense than our *Sniff* fearless leader..."**

Some of the students were still confused, but the ones who knew team JNPR(alongside their members, except Ren, of course), knew exactly what was going on with that.

"Is everything... alright, Nora? Is there something we need to tal-" Ren asked, to which Nora jumped and waved her hands frantically and put on a big smile, immediatelly responding to Ren's unfullfiled question.

"Nothing, nothing! Everything is fine! Everything is super-duper fine! Hehe..."

**"Man, Nora really did drink too much of that..."**

**The fourth scene now showed Jaune, Pyrrha and Ren who were talking outside their dorm room when, all of a sudden, Ruby casually walks right by them.**

**"Hi guys! Forgot my eyemask in your room, I'll just enter and grab it, if you don't mind!" Ruby said as her hand was already on the doorknob and quickly turned it.**

**"Ruby no!" Jaune yelled, but it was too late.**

**Ruby only yelped as Magnhild came crushing on her, the head pinning the Rose on the floor.**

"...Ouch." Sun noted. The whole White seat audience also cringed, while Taiyang crying inside.

**"OhmygoshI'msosososorry!"**

**A frantic Nora appeared from the door room. The one thing that was quite noticable was her messy hair that had hair strands protruding everywhere.**

**"Never enter a room with a Nora that took too much energy drinks." Ren said.**

**"I...think I can see the light..." Ruby barely said as the energized Nora jumped from position to position, but always near Ruby.**

**"Rubyareyouok!Pleasetellmesomething!Ididn'tmeanititwaspurereflex!"**

**The scene ends with the members of team RWBY and JNPR together, every one of them in their own pose as a cool sax riff played in the background before the screen went black.**

"This is precisely one of the reasons why we never give Bart here any energy drinks! He is bad as he is with coffee!" Professor Port joked as Oobleck readjusted his glasses.

"I said that it was a one time only Peter. I believe we have agreed to never speak of that again." Oobleck said as Port heartily laughed.

"But seriously, did something like this actually happened?" Yang asked, to which JNPR mostly sported insecure looks with even more insecure laughs. The icebreaker was, not surprisingly, Nora, who said...

"I never knew that I could make an Ursa fly that far with a full can...Maybe..." And before Nora could delve deeper into a 'what-if' scenario, Ren cut her off by saying two, but effective words.

"Nora no."

"You mean...NOra?"

"Dammit Bob!"

* * *

**Inspired by: "One Spear Knight" & "Meet the Havel" by ThePruld**


	3. Chapter 3

"Now hold on. You said that you restored everybody's missing limbs? Am I correct?" Ironwood asked, to which Bob positively nodded and responded:

"And you want to ask me why I didn't do the same thing to you, right? Frankly...I thought that was your, well... thing with cybernetics. So I left them.

No hard feelings?"

"None at all. I'm just simply...curious." Ironwood bluntly stated, crossing his arms in the process.

"But wait - if I everyone's limbs are regenerated, doesn't that mean that Callows' tail is also-?"

But Watts never got to finish his sentence, as the loud room was filled by the echo of Tyrian's scream and hysterical stuttering.

"WHAT IS THIS...THIS...?!"

"Yeaaaahhh, I kinda didn't know what to do about the stinger...so I replaced it with a rubber ducky!"

Which was true, as the black body of the scorpion faunus's tail is now adored with a bright yellow rubber ducky with a ...Grimm mask?

Bob instanteniously defused the situation by saying:

"Now I know you're freaked out and angry Tyrian...but give it a squeeze. You'll like it, I promise!"

Tyrian managed to compose himself a bit and was met by the glares of his...colleagues as he extended his hand to the rubber ducky stinger. And with a slight squeeze, a sound from the rubber ducky came which said:

"QUACK! GLORY TO THE QUEEN! QUACK!"

Even Ozpin chuckled a bit at that, and the comedy was even greater with the cringed faces of the audience of the Black Seats. That and Tyrian's blistering eyes of happines that could compare to ones of a child who got it's first toy.

"QUACK! HAIL SALEM! QUACK!"

Even Salem herself was a bit amused by Tyrian's new appendage.

Bob made a wide smile to Mercury's silent "Why?" that literally came out as a result of the inner pain in his soul.

"And I have to stop you right now, since we're on a schedule. Don't worry - you can play with yourself later." To which some of the occupants with a peculiar sense of humor laughed like maniacs.

"Let's do this then!" Yang cheered as the black screen lit up.

-/LINEBREAK/-

**Song: Whatever it Takes**

**Performed by: The Rangers**

-/LINEBREAK/-

"This is a music video?" Adam asked.

"Duh, obviously." Mercury responded.

"Hey, that is our old dorm room at Beacon!" Jaune noted as looked towards the opening scene.

"But why is it all underwater?" Nora scratched her head at the weird opening scenery of the video.

"There's Jaune!" Ruby pointed out with a finger on the screen.

**The music started slowly with an ominous tone to it with the whole dorm room being underwater. Jaune Arc appeared from the bathroom as he swam in a direction that was above him, yet the goal was unknown to the audience.**

**The scene's focus then shifted towards a table where various items and trinkets rested, but as the camera was getting closer and closer to the table, it showed that the primary focus was actually a group photo of Jaune, Nora, Pyrrha and Ren with the title "TEAM JNPR", with all of them genuienly smiling at the camera.**

**Suddenly, the scene was abruptly cut to a close-up of Jaune in a dark room as he started to sing.**

_**Falling too fast to prepare for this**_  
_**Tripping in the world could be dangerous**_  
_**Everybody circling, it's vulturous**_  
_**Negative, nepotist**_

**The camera started to back away from the blonde as Jaune stood up and approached the microphone stand that was in front of him. **

_**Everybody waiting for the fall of man**_  
_**Everybody praying for the end of times**_  
_**Everybody hoping they could be the one**_  
_**I was born to run, I was born for this**_

**The camera had the whole RNJR team in picture as the dormroom's lights lit up, showing 4 usual student beds with a couple of wooden nightstands. Ruby took the red&black colored electric guitar, Ren started playing the bass that had the green color of Stormflower while Nora was sitting behind the drums. The bass drum had Nora's personal symbol imprinted on it.**

"We're a band!" Nora jovially exclaimed with arms in the air.

"Why are the dormrooms lacking windows?" Jaune asked nobody in particular, with in mind of pointing out the oddity. Blake stepped up by saying:

"Perhaps it's foreshadowing something?"

_**Whip, whip**_  
_**Run me like a racehorse**_  
_**Pull me like a ripcord**_  
_**Break me down and build me up**_

_**I wanna be the slip, slip**_  
_**Word upon your lip, lip**_  
_**Letter that you rip, rip**_  
_**Break me down and build me up**_

"Something tells me that Jaune there isn't actually talking about THAT kind of stuff..."

Yang's uncertain statement was met with a very determined retort that came from her least favorite person:

"He talks about how pain can...IS a great motivator for one to strive to achieve their goals. In order to progress forward, he quite literally asks for it, as he accepts that nothing can be achieved without it. That's something your feeble human mind could never understand."

Only with a help of Blake did Yang managed to subside her anger towards Taurus. With Blake's simple "We're better than him - let it go", Yang calmed herself down, while Adam simply scoffed at it.

'_Talk about being inconsistent. Last time I remember - the Arc kid is a human himself. Nutjobs...' _Qrow thought as he continued watching the clip.

**The whole room then started shook violently, akin to a very short yet powerful earthquake, yet the musicians seemed to be completely unnafected by it. Pieces of wood flew left and right across the room, but the Rangers just went on with their gig, as if nothing is happening around them.**

_**Whatever it takes**_  
_**'Cause I love the adrenaline in my veins**_  
_**I do whatever it takes**_  
_**'Cause I love how it feels when I break the chains**_

_**Whatever it takes**_  
_**You take me to the top I'm ready for**_  
_**Whatever it takes**_  
_**'Cause I love the adrenaline in my veins**_  
_**I do what it takes**_

**Then all of a sudden - heavy rain started pouring above the band.**

_**Always had a fear of being typical**_  
_**Looking at my body feeling miserable**_  
_**Always hanging on to the visual**_  
_**I wanna be invisible**_

**The water gathered on the floor leveled their feet, but all of the members were unfazed by that and continued to play.**

Ironwood was a bit baffled at the whole scene, and said:

"Shouldn't the electricity from those instruments fry them all when in contact with water?"

"I believe that we are past any logic here, James." Ozpin replied.

_**Looking at my years like a martyrdom**_  
_**Everybody needs to be a part of 'em**_  
_**Never be enough, I'm the prodigal son**_  
_**I was born to run, I was born for this**_

**The water was now knee deep level and kept rising, but the bandcarried on.**

_**Whip, whip**_  
_**Run me like a racehorse**_  
_**Pull me like a ripcord**_  
_**Break me down and build me up**_

_**I wanna be the slip, slip**_  
_**Word upon your lip, lip**_  
_**Letter that you rip, rip**_  
_**Break me down and build me up**_

**The screen now showed a miniature version of a Grimm Sea Dragon diving in the water.**

"Ugh, those things again." Sun noted with a bit of annoyance in his voice.

_**Whatever it takes**_  
_**'Cause I love the adrenaline in my veins**_  
_**I do whatever it takes**_  
_**'Cause I love how it feels when I break the chains**_

_**Whatever it takes**_  
_**You take me to the top, I'm ready for**_  
_**Whatever it takes**_  
_**'Cause I love the adrenaline in my vein**_

**The scenes were constantly shifting between adding the Sea Dragons and the band playing their instruments, but now visibly trying to continue while keeping their instruments above water.**

"The sheer tenacity of the musicians is quite admirable!" Port said, himself being quite impressed by the looks of him.

_**I do what it takes**_

**The whole room was submerged as Jaune sang the last words of the chorus, the water overcoming him. However, the singing did not stop.**

**Hypocritical, egotistical**  
**Don't wanna be the parenthetical, hypothetical**  
**Working onto something that I'm proud of, out of the box**  
**An epoxy to the world and the vision we've lost**

**The scenes were constantly now shifting between RNJR's weapons and Pyrrha's golden crown, both of those which were slowly sinking in the water.**

**Then the focus was set on Jaune, who still held the microphone in his hand and sang underwater, with the two Sea Dragons enveloping his arms, torso and legs.**

"You gotta be kidding me..." Mercury said in annoyance. While on the opposite side (where the White seats were) was the young Neptune Vasilias, who was currently shivering in fear.

"Dude, just tell me when it stops." Neptune muttered to Sun, his hands covering his eyes to. The monkey faunus could only shrug to Neptune's behavior when regarding his unnatural fear of water.

_**I'm an apostrophe**_  
_**I'm just a symbol to remind you that there's more to see**_  
_**I'm just a product of the system, a catastrophe**_  
_**And yet a masterpiece, and yet I'm half-diseased**_  
_**And when I am deceased**_  
_**At least I go down to the grave and die happily**_  
_**Leave the body and my soul to be a part of thee**_  
_**I do what it takes**_

Pyrrha was now frozen in her seat as the sudden revelation hit her.

And it hit her very hard.

She originally assumed that the singer Jaune was talking about himself and his own troubles...but with the last bit of the text - her assumptions were all thrown into the water.

'This...this is about me.' Pyrrha thought, her face lowered down from the screen.

"Is-is everything alright Pyrrha?"

The voice that she came to love spoke right at her side once more. And truth be told, she couldn't be even more grateful to...Bob, for bringing her back, even if it was temporary, and give her a chance to be with Jaune.

Even if it was for the sole purpose of watching some clips that represent their alternate realities.

"Yes. Everything is now alright." Pyrrha responded, a happy smile decorating her face. Jaune only smiled in response, as he now truly knew that nothing was wrong with his partner now.

_'So, finally understood it, didja?'_

**The music was then replaced by the sounds of water as Jaune closed his eyes and stopped singing. The scene also represented all the other members of RNJR who, like Jaune, drowned underwater, with their bodies floating in the water.**

"We...drowned?" Ruby asked sheepishly.

"Seems like it." Ren dully noted.

"That's lame!" Nora added.

"Hey, who's that?!" Weiss pointed at the screen.

**Strands of red hair appeared out of nowhere above, now freshly drowned Jaune - precisely, his face. A feminine hand caresed his cheek for a while before holding it with both hands.**

"You don't think..."

"No. That...That is me." Pyrrha said, a little bit surprised at her appearance.

**The (obvious) identity of the female was obscured as the floating red hair covered the majority of her face that was getting close to Jaune's, before it finally merged with his by pressing her lips onto the Arc's.**

Both Pyrrha and Jaune (and some others) blushed at the scene. Other's groaned at it.

"And the lovers are reunited in death. How _romantic_." Roman snarked.

"Nope. This ain't that." Qrow added.

**The kiss was short-lived as Jaune opened his eyes, and in the next moment - the scenery took a complete change. The dorm room now was half-burned and almost destroyed, with some fires still being lit in various places.**

**The background around the dorm room looked like a complete wasteland, with a noticeable feature of a lot of black-colored corpses that emanated smoke.**

**Team RNJR shown to be alive and had their instruments with them.**

**The instruments themselves went from being fully soaked with water to being engulfed into flames.**

**The band wasn't better to wear - all the members looked like they just came from an aftermath of a battlefield. Clothes were either torn or burned, and everyone had their fair share of bruises and cuts, with blood coming out from the said wounds.**

**Nora was even missing an eye!**

"Bob?"

"Yes Nora?"

"The whole thing with me having a missing eye... Will that be a recurring thing?"

"Yep."

"Eh, could've been worse. Still - cool!"

"Buddy, it's over. You can look now." Sun said to Neptune, who opened his eyes and was relieved that his source of unimaginable fear was gone now.

"...Idiot." Weiss spoke quietly.

**And the band started to play again.**

_**Whatever it takes**_  
_**'Cause I love the adrenaline in my veins**_  
_**I do whatever it takes**_  
_**'Cause I love how it feels when I break the chains**_

_**Whatever it takes**_  
_**You take me to the top, I'm ready for**_  
_**Whatever it takes**_  
_**'Cause I love the adrenaline in my veins**_  
_**I do what it takes**_

**The fire started cackling as the song finally ended. The dorm room finally burned down, albeit without any occupants inside, with the instruments still there, as the Grimm corpses vanished completely in smoke.**

"Well...That was... interesting." Weiss said.

"Interesting? It. Was. AWESOME! I never knew you could sing so well Jauney!" Yang teased, to which Jaune could only scratch his head in response.

"Well...I actually never sang in my life, so I couldn't say much."

"Ahem - the day before the dance party?" Blake asked.

"Hey, I was desperate, okay?!"

"Well, now you won't be desperate anymore, if you get what I'm sayin..." Bob said as he pointed his index fingers to the couple.

Bob then disappeared in a blur and went behind the 'Couples-Only' seat.

"You know, I can set up a personal room for just the two of you. What do you say?" Bob whispered, to which Pyrrha flustered and her face being redder than her hair. Jaune was just confused at the whole scene.

"What do you mean by th-"

"WE'LL THINK ABOUT IT!" Pyrrha quickly responded. Bob smiled at both of them as he slowly went down to the screen.

"Everything according to plan..."

"Sorry, did you say something?"

"Oh, nothing Oscar. Absolutely nothing of importance. Nothing that concerns you..."

_'For now, hehe.'_

* * *

**Inspired by: "Whatever it Takes" by Imagine Dragons**


	4. Chapter 4

"It's movie time guys!" Bob yelled, to which he got a small cheer from Ruby, Yang, Sun and Nora as a response.

"We need popcorn!" Ruby said.

"Pancakes!" Nora added.

"Wait wait, first of all, newsflash here - the Dimensional Cinema has different laws considering physics and biology, meaning that you don't need to go to the bathroom and that technically you can't starve to death here.

Doesn't mean you can't eat at all, it just means that you don't need to eat." Bob explained.

"That is... surprisingly convinient." Winter dully noted.

With a snap of Bob's fingers, a bucket of popcorn and a closed soda cup with a straw fell on everyone's arm rests.

Well, not everyone got the same thing - Nora was given a bucket that was filled to the top with sweetened pancakes; Ozpin had his trademarked coffee mug in his hands(which felt surprisingly nice); Qrow got an alcoholic drink in a form of a bottle in his hands and Neo was given a pretty large ice cream cone with flavors of strawberry, chocolate and vanilla.

"Sorry Roman. Closed spaces mean no cigars are allowed. Though I can give you this." Bob said as he tossed a piece of wrapped up chewing tobacco. Roman's response was:

"Eh, take what you can get, I say."

"Can you at least tell us something about what're you gonna play? You know - prepare us for a bit!?" Sun said.

Bob stood a bit in the same spot, while scratching his unshaved face before responding to the monkey faunus.

"It's a revenge movie. Nuff said." Bob then snapped his fingers yet once more and the screen came to life once more.

**The sound of trumpets pierced throughout the room as the audience could see the words that etched on the screen.**

"Copycat Productions? What a strange name!" Penny noted.

_'And quite fitting, I might say' _Bob thought as the screen went...

**Black. Pure darkness enveloped the scene at first, only to be accompanied by a sudden sound of footsteps on a squeaky wooden floor. The darkness was cut by a black and white scene of a lightened up wooden floor and the feet that the scene followed. Black leather shoes accompanied by tight black pants, and that is all what the scene showed.**

Blake felt uneasy. And for a good reason, since the pants and the shoes on the screen were very familiar to her. She decided to say something to break her flow of thought, and that was:

"Who is this? Is it somebody we know?"

"Let's just watch and see." Weiss responded.

And those words didn't comfort Blake.

Not one bit.

**The feet were walking at a steady and slow pace, and to the sound of footsteps was added the noise of someone's errathic breathing.**

**As the feet stopped moving, so did the scene shifted - to a close up of a bloodied and bruised up Blake's face, with Blake herself crying and breathing quite fast.**

"BLAKE!" Both Yang and Ilia jumped from her seat, their teeth already gritting in anger.

Now that was a usual reaction that she expected from her friends. From others that were even closer to her however...

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS!?" Ghira stood up and, quite frankly - looked like he was out for blood.

Kali was also shocked by the scene, but she composed herself enough that she managed to calm her husband down by putting her hand on his shoulders.

"Whoever did this is dead m..."

Sun was already cracking his knuckles, equally angered as the rest of them, but his sentence cut off by the ACTUAL unharmed Blake... in the audience.

"Uh, guys - I'm here. That is just an another Blake in a completely different timeline. I mean - thanks, but there is no need to it - that's not me." Blake awkwardly said.

Sun crossed his arms and, with a puff, he said:

"Doesn't make it any less wrong."

**The injured Blake in the scene was frantically moving her eyes before setting her gaze on the person who was in front of her.**

**"Do you find me sadistic?" The person in front of her spoke**.

"That's...that's Adam's voice!" Illia noted with a bit of shock her voice betrayed.

Taurus turned towards the White seat members, his posture seemingly showing that he didn't actually care about that.

"Your point being?" Adam asked, however he did not get an answer.

**The focus was still on Blake's face and it showed that Adam was cleaning some of the blood on her face with his napkin, much to the girls clear disdain.**

**"You know, I bet I could fry an egg on your head right now, if I wanted to." Adam spoke.**

"That's just screwed up, man. Like a WHOLE different level of...wrong. Just wrong." Neptune commented. Adam remained silent.

**"I'd like to believe that you're aware enough even now to know that there's nothing sadistic in my actions. Well, maybe towards those other... fools, but not you. No Blake, at this moment, this is me at my most..." Adam stopped for a moment to pull something out of his vest and...released the safety on a pistol, all while the focus was still on Blake.**

Jaune, like the most of them, was in a state of disbelief. He spoke:

"Tell me he isn't going to..."

But was interrupted immediately.

**"...masochistic."**

**Blake was in shock at what was in front of her, and her face portraying a look of anger.**

**"Adam...it's your baby..."**

**But he pulled the trigger, and her blood splattered all across the floor.**

Ruby covered her eyes with her cloak, while the rest of the audience - even the Gray and the Black seats, were in quite a shock.

"What monster...could do that?!" Oscar muttered. He knew that people were capable

"Apparently, one that is a genocidal maniac who kills everyone for his own personal goals." Roman added.

Adam scoffed at the remark and soon everybody continued watching.

**[PLAY: Nancy Sinatra - Bang Bang]**

**linebreak**

**Cull Bull**

**linebreak**

Yang was now utterly confused at this - first she saw her partn- no, FRIEND being shot in the head by the asshole who cut her arm off.

Second, she heard that Blake was actually pregnant with the asshole. Still, even THAT didn't stop him from shooting her in the head.

As she slurped her soda, she spoke up with irritation in her voice:

"Cull Bull? What kind of a title is that?"

"What does it even mean?" Ruby sheepishly added as she munched a cookie.

"Cull by definition , Miss Rose, means either selection from a large quantity or slaughter of wild animals." Glynda thoroughly explained and immediately sent a glare to Bob.

Probably because she knew that he was about to crack a very unfunny joke at her expense.

Experience is a great teacher, after all.

**The screen went dark after showing the title, the music still playing in the background for quite some time. And then the singer let out her voice.**

_**I was five and he was six**_  
_**We rode on horses made of sticks**_  
_**He wore black and I wore white**_  
_**He would always win the fight**_

_**Bang bang, he shot me down**_  
_**Bang bang, I hit the ground**_  
_**Bang bang, that awful sound**_  
_**Bang bang, my baby shot me down**_

_**Seasons came and changed the time**_  
_**When I grew up, I called him mine**_  
_**He would always laugh and say**_  
_**"Remember when we used to play?"**_

_**Bang bang, I shot you down**_  
_**Bang bang, you hit the ground**_  
_**Bang bang, that awful sound**_  
_**Bang bang, I used to shoot you down**_

"...Wow..." Oscar could only voice his amazement for the song.

'A sorrowful song about unfulfilled love...Like I haven't heard one of those before...'

Raven thought, but still...something bothered her, and the thing that irked her the most was that she couldn't figure out what.

Or even why.

She wasn't exactly the same cold Raven Branwen, the merciless leader of a raider tribe, after the conversation at the vault of the Spring Maiden, so perhaps she felt sadness, even guilt, while listening to the song.

After all, she did 'shot down' her entire team when she left them with Yang in Tai's care.

The old Raven would probably be annoyed by the song, as it resufarced memories she deemed useless and forgetable, and wanted to do nothing else but stuff them under the rug.

However, the question now is...

_'What are you thinking now, Raven?'_

**The screen lights up in black-and white to present a shadowed Blake that is lying on the floor. The darkness completely enveloped her, the only light being the small window that shined throughout the room.**

_**Music played and people sang**_  
_**Just for me the church bells rang**_

_**Now he's gone, I don't know why**_  
_**And 'till this day, sometimes I cry**_  
_**He didn't even say goodbye**_  
_**He didn't take the time to lie**_

_**Bang bang, he shot me down**_  
_**Bang bang, I hit the ground**_  
_**Bang bang, that awful sound**_  
_**Bang bang, my baby shot me down**_

**[END: Nancy Sinatra - Bang Bang]**

**The screen once again faded in black, but in the next moment, a few words appeared on the black background**

**linebreak**

**Chapter One: 2**

**linebreak**

"Chapter one two?" Nora raised an eyebrow at the title as she munched her pancakes, finding it a bit weird to have a name like that.

"I believe this may not be the first unusual thing we will see on this movie." Ozpin calmly spoke as he readjusted his glasses.

**The scenery shifted to that scenery of a family-sized house, the flowers in the garden and the color itself was in in different shades of blue and yellow. Then, words appeared in front of the screen.**

**Menagerie**

**And quickly after that, a bulky, yellow colored car with red flames on it caught the whole view on the house, the driver in it being an observing Blake who looked to her right.**

"YOU'RE ALIVE!" Yang and Sun exclaimed at the same time. Blake could only facepalm at this.

"I really want to know what is she's doing in Menagerie. Isn't everyday that someone survives a direct bulllet to the face." Mercury commented.

**The scene shifted to the house Blake was looking at. This house was even larger than the previous one, with Green walls and a dark-blue roof. A larger, but standard family house. And outside of it was an even larger, grass-green garden with quite a few toys outside on the grass itself.**

**A mailbox was there, in front of it, with the name "The Green's" on it.**

**The view of the house was intruded by Blake, who stepped out of the car and proceeded to go towards the door. The cat faunus was casually dressed - black leather jacket with a white tank top, blue trousers and white sneakers. Nothing too special.**

**Blake rung the doorbell once, and turned back around to look at the toys laying around in the garden.**

**Then, a voice came out of the house.**

**"I'm coming! Jade, I cannot believe that you came home this early..."**

**And the one who opened the door was a tanned girl with reddish eyes and green hair, dressed in a brown tee and regular trousers.**

"Sustrai?" Cinder questioned.

"I have no idea either, mistress." Emerald spoke with slight uncertainty in her voice.

**[PLAY: Kill Bill OST - Ironside Siren]**

**The scene zoomed on Blake's eyes as she gazed on Emerald. A passing flashback appeared, showing Emerald performing a flying kick to a pregnant Blake's face, who was dressed in a wedding dress with a gown.**

**Emerald's face was completely emotionless at that time.**

To say Ghira was angry was a bit of an understatement.

The proof being that a vein popped on his neck, the result of trying to contain his rage that was burning inside of him.

A man usually feels that way when he sees his pregnant daughter getting viciously beaten, alternate version or not.

"Beating up pregnant women? That is really, REALLY low - even for my standards." Roman commented with venom in his voice.

"And on her happiest, most important day in her life! Despicable!" Oobleck added in his own 'shocked' demeanor.

"Hey, if she was a threat - something had to be done! Pregnant or not!" Emerald desperately tried to justify her counterpart, but only added fuel to the fire with that statement.

"In no world can you tell that it's a right thing to do something like that kid." Qrow angrily said, sending a piercing gaze to the thief.

All while Blake wondered as she slurped a bit of juice - to whom she was getting married to?

**[END: Kill Bill OST - Ironside Siren]**

**The flashback disappeared and the scene returned to the present. And in the next moment, Blake landed a fist on Emerald's face.**

"That's gotta hurt." Mercury bluntly said with food in his mouth, with some of it coming out as he spoke.

"Totally deserved it." Yang added with a sense of satisfaction. Emerald could only scoff at that.

**Emerald cocked back from the blow and recovered fast enough to block Blake's kick, but not fast enough to block Blake's second punch.**

**She did however blocked Blake's haymaker whilst grabbing her arm and managed to toss her at the wall, breaking a glass frame of a portrait.**

"That looks...painful." Neptune winced with a 'pained' expression on his face.

"Uh, shouldn't...shouldn't their Aura absorb all the damage?" Ruby sheepishly asked.

"Nope. No Aura in this timeline." Bob quickly responded as...

**Blake blocked Emerald's axe kick, and responded with a kick of her own to Emerald's crotch.**

And almost everyone shuddered at that scene.

"Fighting dirty there, eh kitty cat?" Roman commented with a smug smile. Blake immediately retaliated in her own sarcastic manor and said:

"Never would've I guessed that you're actually an honorable fighter yourself, Torchwick."

Roman's only response to that was:

"Touche."

**The crotch kick was immediately followed by a kick to the face, which resulted in Emerald landing on a glass table and breaking it at the same time. Blake jumped over the sofa to kick her only for Emerald to retaliate by taking a wooden table leg and smashing it on Blake's knee.**

"Hey! Blake should be the one breaking legs, not the other way around!" Nora said as she was now devouring the popcorn Ren had borrowed to her.

**Blake cried in pain and fell to the ground. She quickly composed herself and blocked Emerald's strike with the table leg. The faunus retaliated by planting her foot on Emerald's stomach and throwing her over. Emerald fell on her face and was grabbed behind by the neck as Blake was trying to suffocate her to death as she squezzed her arm tighter.**

_'C'mon me - you can beat her with your eyes closed!' _Emerald cheered internally to her alternate self.

**Blake would've ended her life right there on the glass-filled house carpet if Emerald haven't noticed a fire poker which she immediately grabbed and hit the faunus with it.**

"A weapon that happened to be at an arm's reach. How _convenient_." Watts said in his usual know-it-all fashion.

**Blake kicked away the fire poker from Emerald's hand, which the green-haired girl responded by sending a metal shelf that landed right on Blake. Emerald then ran away towards the kitchen as Blake tried to get free from the broken shelf while trying to not cut herself too much with all the broken glass and ceramic.**

**The faunus followed her target into a kitchen, where she barely got hit by an oncoming slash of a kitchen knife. The frying pan that Blake took proved to be quite efficient at blocking a knife for a short time until Emerald cut her hand, making it drop on the ground. A kick in the stomach sent Blake straight on a wooden table of the dinning room, where she quickly rolled under it to avoid Emerald's lunge. Blake then took out her own knife and barely missed Emerald's face as she stabbed through the table.**

"Now that is what I would say to be a very close call!" Port said with unusual cheeriness.

**Emerald jumped from the table and went to the living room, while Blake jumped over the table and slowly approached her. Both of the girls took their stances, and both of them were testing each other and waiting as who would strike first...and who would parry the first strike.**

**Until a bus came in front of the house, where a little girl came out of it. Tanned dark skin with a green shade of hair all indicated that she was...**

Emerald's jaw dropped at the sight of the little girl on the screen and barely managed to say out:

"Is-Is that my kid?"

**Emerald's face immediately shifted from a 'ready-to-kill-at-first-moment' to a literal look that pleaded for temporary mercy. Fortunately, Blake got the look and both women put the knives behind their backs as Emerald's daughter entered the room.**

"Nah, it can't be - she's too cute to be yours." Mercury joked, to which Emerald just stick her tongue out to him.

"_Children..." _Watts commented in annoyance.

**"Hi there sweetie! How was school today?"**

**The little girl would've responded if she didn't notice the general mess in the living room, and glass shards all over the carpet.**

**"Mommy, what happened to the room?"**

"Yeah, mommy - what happened to the room?" Mercury joked, earning a quick punch to the shoulder as a response from the green haired girl.

**"That good-for-nothing dog of your gone wild all over the place." Emerald lied of course.**

**It ****is**** a bit complicated to explain to a 5 year old that a woman whom she thought she killed 5 years ago somehow came back to life just to kill her and get her vengeance.**

**"Donut did this?"**

**"Now Jade, you can't come over here - there is broken glass everywhere, so you might cut yourself." Emerald extended her hand and stopped her daughter from approaching near her. The little girl's attention then shifted towards Blake, and Emerald noticed that quickly.**

**"This is an old friend who mommy didn't see in a long time."**

**"Hi honey", Blake spoke," I'm [BLIP]. What's your name?"**

"Wait, what?" Yang blurted.

"Why...why was Blake's name bleeped?" Ruby asked.

"The better term is censored." Weiss said.

"Eh, hell if I know." Bob responded.

**"Her name is Jade." Emerald said as she turned to Blake.**

**"Jade. A pretty name for such a pretty girl...How old are you, Jade?"**

**The little girl didn't respond as she starred at the new guest in her home.**

**"Jade, [BLIP] asked you a question." Emerald said.**

**"I am four."**

**"Four years old?" Blake paused, gulped and spoke,"I also had a little girl once. She'd be about four now." Blake finished as she looked down, trying to forget...no, repress the painful memory and remind herself what she was there for.**

"What happened to my grandchild?" Kali asked.

"Yeah, seriously - we didn't get to know what happened with Blake's kid!" Sun said.

Ozpin could only sigh, since it all indicated that the child that Blake was carrying was no more.

"Tell me Adam - would you do this? Could you...shoot me down, like that?" Blake asked, to which the ex-leader of the White Fang folded his arms on his chest.

"There must be reason on why this...other me did that," Adam explained.

Andsurprisingly provoked quite a reaction from Weiss, as the former heiress was now fuming and angrily yelled:

"In what world could you justify shooting an injured, defenseless pregnant woman?! What kind of monster do you have to be to condone this kind of action and make it look right?!"

The Schnee then noticed Blake, who put an arm on her shoulder with the intent to calm her down.

"It doesn't matter Weiss. We're better, and we'll always be better than him. I just needed to be sure."

"Of what?"

"...Never mind."

**Emerald approached her daughter and kneeled as she wrapped an arm around her.**

**"Now listen baby. Me and mommy's friend - we have some grown-up talk to do. So I want you to go to your room and leave us alone until I say that you can come out, okay?" Emerald said. The little girl's gaze shifted from her mother's to Blake's, but was broken by her mother with a snap of her fingers.**

**"Jade! In your room, right now!" the woman said as her daughter started walking towards the staircase, all while looking back. As Jade climbed up the second floor, Blake put back the her knife in the sheath.**

**"You want some coffee?" Emerald asked.**

**"Yeah, sure." Blake responded as both of them went into the kitchen.**

**The camera then shifted to a bird's eye view, looking straight at the kitchen, were both Blake and Emerald were. Blake was waiting at the doorway while Emerald got on to making some coffee.**

**"This housewife's name is Jasmine Vasilias. Her husband is Doctor Neptune Vasilias." Blake's voice spoke.**

"Uh, what? I'm her husband?" Neptune questioned with his finger pointed at Emerald.

"As if you could ever be the spouse of that broad." Weiss commented bluntly.

Which, of course, caused Emerald's eyebrow twitched a bit in anger and Emerald herself yell out:

"Excuse me?"

Before a potential argument could've broken out, Yang decided to step in and tease the younger Schnee a bit by saying:

"Getting jelaous, are we Weissy?"

Weiss, by some miracle, didn't blush and scoffed at the remark.

"Of an idiotic womanizer?" Weiss responded, to which Neptune could only sigh at that.

_'Hmm... something needs to be done here, that's for sure...' _Bob thought as the movie continued.

**"But back when we were aquainted four eyes ago, her name was Emerald Sustrai. Her codename was Beringel. Mine - Beowolf."**

**"I suppose that it's too late for an apology?" Emerald asked as she poured some coffee.**

**"You suppose correctly." Blake responded as she cleaned herself with a nearby towel. Emerald then started walking in a menacing way, with a gaze fixated on the woman who tried to kill her.**

**"Listen bitch, I need to know if you're gonna start any shit around my baby girl." Emerald said. Blake remained calm and lowered the towel.**

**"You can relax. I'm not going to murder you in front of your child." Blake responded.**

"But I will murder you in any other way. Hidden meanings - who cannot love them?" Roman added with obvious sarcasm in his voice.

**"Hmph. You're a lot more rational than Adam led me to believe."**

**"It's mercy, compassion and forgiveness I lack - not rationality." Blake said as Emerald lowered the cup in front of her.**

"Scary." Sun said as he shivered a bit.

"Indeed." Ozpin simply added.

**"Listen - I know I fucked you over. I fucked you over bad, and I wish I didn't. You have every right to get even."**

**Blake snickered at Emerald's sentence.**

**"Even? For us to be even, I would have to kill you. Then go into Jade's room and kill her. And then wait for your husband, the good Doctor Vasilias and kill him. That would be even, Emerald. That would be about square." Blake said, making a square with her finger.**

"That-that is-that is not right! Why would Blake do that?!" Ruby yelped while grabbing her hair.

"Revenge tends to cloud your judgment, making you do a lot of screwed up stuff. If you want to know more, just ask Hazel there!" Bob smiled, to which Hazel only gave Bob a glare.

**"If I had a machine, I would go back and undo all the shit I've done. But I can't. I can only tell you that I am a different person now."**

**"Oh great. I. Don't. Care."**

**"Be it as it may, I know I don't deserve neither mercy nor forgivness from you." Emerald then went to the desk and picked up a photo of her kid.**

**"But I besiege you on behalf of my daughter!" Emerald said as she showed the photo at Blake. She didn't got the wanted reaction, however, as she just smiled.**

**"Bitch, you can stop right there. Just because I don't wish to murder you in front your daughter doesn't mean that parading her around will going to inspire sympathy from me. You and I have unfinished business. And nothing that happened during these four years is going to change that, including getting knocked up."**

"Such mentality, and with an unbreakable resolve! Truly a natural talent!" Tyrian jovially said.

"No exceptions - it's the way it is always supposed to be." Adam added with some sort of seriousness in his voice.

"Funny, coming from the guy who shot her in the head and left her for dead." Qrow pointed out.

"She does have a point there. Using that kind of tactic to escape from the situation is...despicable, to say at least."

"Of course - after all, you know about all that better than anyone in this room, _mom_." Yang responded and was a bit irritated at her mother's comment.

Raven moved her eyes away from the daughter, sufficiently escaping a potential argument.

"Still, gotta say - that's a pretty low move, Em. Even for you."

"And like you could've done it any better. Just shut up Merc."

**"So, tell me Emerald, when do you want to die. Tommorow? The day after tommorow?"**

**"How about tonight, bitch?"**

**"Works for me."**

**"We'll meet at 2 in the morning at the baseball field where I train the little league, all dressed in black. And we will have ourselves a knife fight."**

"What's base ball? Does it involve breaking legs?" Nora asked.

"It's a sports game from m... a different timeline. It's not uncommon for timelines to not have Grimm, and therefore - no need for Huntsmen and Huntresses. And no - breaking legs is something that is forbidden there." Bob explained, to Nora's disappointment, but also arising a few curious looks - mainly from Ozpin's and Salem's groups.

**Emerald rose her index finger, making Blake flinch back a little before saying,"And now, if you'll excuse me - I have to fix Jade's cereal."**

**She backed off and went towards the cupboard and grabbed a box, which then she proceeded to open it with a knife.**

**"Adam always did say that you were one of the best ladies he saw with an edge weapon."**

**"Oh screw you. I know he didn't qualify that kind of stuff, so you - can kiss my ass, Beowolf." Emerad responded with a chuckle as she went towards the fridge.**

**"Heh, Beowolf. I should've been the Beowolf, not some sort of a monkey-based animal."**

"I take that as a personal insult!" Sun joked, earning him a scoff from the actual Emerald.

"Nobody cares, monkey boy," She bluntly responded.

**"Hey, the way you wield that butcher knife, I'd say it's fitting." Blake responded with a sip of of her coffee.**

"Damn, Blake! What a burn!" Yang cheered.

"**Ha! Very funny bitch...very funny!" Emerald yelled as she raised the box towards Blake and shot the concealed gun within it towards her. Fortunately, due to lack of iron sights, Emerald missed by an inch, giving Blake enough time to react by dropping the cup and kicking it towards the green-haired girl.**

**The life of Emerald Sustrai was ended with a quick knife throw straight to her heart. As Emerald collapsed on the floor and all signs of life from her were gone, Blake approached the corpse of her target and crouched to remove the knife from her chest.**

The teams, and some other audience members, were a bit shocked at how the whole event ended. Some have expected for the knife fight that was set to occur later, and some even hoped that this could've ended peacefully.

"Oh my..." Kali said, still a bit unnerved at the scene.

Adam was a bit pleased, at least deep inside, as he witnessed a different Blake who threw away all her principles and morality for the goal of vengeance.

...Of course, he knew that he himself was the main target of it, but nevertheless, it was pleasing to the eye.

"How...how could she do that?" Ruby stuttered a bit.

"Eye for an eye, little Red. They left her for dead, and this - this is simply payba..." Roman didn't finish the sentence as it was interrupted by Ozpin's words.

And it was clear as day that he was now very, VERY worried.

"Oh no..."

**Blake stood up and discovered that behind her was Emerald's daughter Jade, who now witnessed the entire act.**

**The young girl's face still remained completely emotionless as before - perhaps that one trait she got from her mother that showed how similar she is, or now - was, to her.**

**Blake immediately grabbed a nearby cloth and started cleaning her knife with it.**

**"It was never my intention to do this in front of you. And for that I'm sorry. But you can take my word for it - your mother had it coming." Blake threw the cloth and the scene shifted to a close up of her holstering her knife.**

**She then turned around to face the child of her victim and made a small gulp before saying:**

**"When you grow up...and you still feel raw about it...I'll be waiting."**

**Blake then exited the house, leaving the child with her mother's corpse in the kitchen.**

"Well, if it's any consolation - you did okay Em." Mercury said.

"*Sigh* but I still ended up with a knife in the chest." Em responded.

**The scene shifted to Blake who was in her car, a paper and a pen in her hands as she crossed a name from her list. **

**1\. ****Yang Xiao Long**

**2\. ****Emerald Sustrai**

**3\. Mercury Black**

**4\. Cinder Fall**

**ADAM**

**And the screen went black.**

"I-I-I am on her list. Why?" Yang muttered.

"Well, technically you WERE on the list." Bob noted, earning a grunt from the blonde.

"Not helping there. Not helping at all." Yang responded.

"It doesn't matter Yang - it's a different timeline, no need to get rilled up about it." Blake said, trying to calm down the blonde.

"That aside, tell me - was it fun?" Bob asked.

"Well...kind of? I mean, the fight was pretty good..." Oscar said sheepishly.

"It only proves that adaptibility always triumphs over planning!" Oobleck said.

"Bart, the only thing she planned was a gun in a cereal box." Glynda added.

"You know, she would've been saved if she had a Pumpkin Pete cereal box - if you get what I'm saying." Bob said as he chuckled at this own joke.

"No, we don't." Weiss responded.

"You know, because Pyrrha is on the cover an... you know what? Screw it, not explaining this stuff. We're ending this chapter now!"

"Chapter? What are you talki-"

"END!"

* * *

**Inspired by: "Kill Bill Vol.1" by Quentin Tarantino**


	5. Chapter 5

The atmosphere in the Dimensional Cinema was now a bit more calmer than in the beggining, as tensions between the viewers haven't dissapeared, but aren't as high as they used to be.

Perhaps the reason was that all of them, Ozpin and Salem themselves included, weren't sure what their jovial excentric host was capable of - if his claims of bringing them all to this place were not lies, that is.

Speaking of Bob...

"So, we've seen some pretty hardcore stuff until now. So how about some comedy for a change, eh?"

The Atlas Specialist Winter Schnee was getting a little bit suspicious at that, so she spoke:

"You must know that we all do not share the same sense of humor, don't you?"

Qrow, being Qrow, had to make a witty response to that,fully knowing that it will only serve to piss off the Ice Queen.

He had absolutely no qualms about that.

So he said:

"I'm surprised that you HAD one to begin with."

"Hmph, as if yours is...any better!" Winter responded a bit uneasy.

'Smoking hot, but can't trash talk...' Bob thought as he walked over to the Black seats.

"Well, before we begin - Roman...I hope that you'll find a way to forgive me for this."

Before Roman could ask what was that about, the Cinema screen lit and Bob dissapeared in a puff of smoke.

**The opening scene presented Roman Torchwick walking on the street in slow motion, but the look on his face was clear that Torchwick was going through a hard time. And suddenly, a voice began to speak:**

**LIFE **_**(Life...)**_

**LIFE IS FULL OF MYSTERIES **_**(Mysteries...)**_

**LIFE IS FULL OF HARDSHIPS **_**(Hardships...)**_

**The scene was then cut to an uncertain(if the emotion is true) Roman sitting on stairs, with his face being...morphed, for the lack of better term, in various ways, with his mouth constantly opening and closing.**

**YOU SAID IT AGAIN SISTER!**

**SOMETIMES IT'S HARD TO OPEN A JAR!**

**At those words, the next scene was in some kitchen where Torchwick tries to open a jar of pickles, but to no avail.**

Ruby was snickering through the entire thing, and barely managed to speak with her constant giggling:

"I can...relate to that!"

"Gee, that certainly gives me consolation." Roman responded dully, as he was having a hard time looking at his alternate self acting like a...

Complete and utter moron.

**SOMETIMES IT'S HARD TO CLEAN THE SINK!**

**YEAH!**

**True to the words, Roman did try to clean the sink but only to violently push all the dishes in it.**

**AND IF YOU'RE NOT CAREFUL, YOU MIGHT EVEN GET EATEN BY A GRIMM!**

**And the scene immediately shifted to the top of an Atlesian bulkhead where, immediately after Roman finished his monologue to Ruby, got swallowed whole by a Griffon.**

Neo was...visibly upset, unlike some of the 'goody-two-shoes' who merely winced at the scene.

She was moreso upset because she knew that THAT actually happened.

"That's...pretty rough." Tai said, in an empathetic way. True, by Ruby's words, Roman Torchwick WAS a pretty brutal criminal.

But honestly, nobody deserved a death like that.

**WELL GUESS WHAT!**

**WHAT?**

**Roman was now sitting on the toilet seat, puffing in and out while looking like he needs to make an important life decision.**

**He also rolled his sleeves up and..well...**

**WE CAN MAKE YOUR LIFE A LITTLE BIT EASIER!**

**HOW?**

**After Roman decided to grab a paper-less toilet roll, the screen exploded into two flaming words.**

**LIFE HACKS!**

**HELL YEAH!**

**LIFE HACKS CAN MAKE YOUR LIFE EASIER!**

**Roman's back faced the camera as he moved towards the exit, but not before he stood for a moment and properly scratched his...**

And to that, Ruby squeaked: "Eww!"

"I definetely did NOT had to see that.",Weiss said,"I do not even want to think what he's done with the roll..."

"Double EW, Weiss! We don't need you to tell us that!" Yang protested, all while her dad was laughing like a complete maniac at all of this.

**NO WAY!**

**WAY!**

**And it just zoomed on his hand scratching his butt.**

"Next scene, PLEASE!" Glynda desperately begged, and like that - the screen fullfiled the combat teacher's request.

**LIFE HACKS!**

**OH YEAH!**

**HAVING A HARD TIME GETTING THAT STAIN OF THE WALL?**

**Torchwick, to that, was constantly brushing a pink stain on the white wall with nothing more than a napkin.**

"Cleaning any kind of stains with a dry napkin has a small probability of success!" Penny jovially said with her bow jumping down and up.

**Roman threw away the napkin and gave the stain a middle finger.**

"Really civilized there, Roman. Weren't you supposed to be the 'textbook definition of classy', as you once put?" Emerald smuggly said, which earned her a glare from both Roman and Neo.

**JUST ADD A FEW DROPS OF LEMON AND THAT STAIN WILL GO RIGHT AWAY!**

**Indeed he added a few drops of lemon to the napkin and scrubbed the stain a bit before giving the camera a very dumb looking thumbs up.**

**OH YEAH!**

"The stain is still there!" Weiss yelled out, to which her sister coldly responded:

"I believe that something else has to be added in the mixture too..."

**ARE YOU HAVING A HARD TIME SMOKING AND EATING AT THE SAME TIME?**

**WELL NOW YOU CAN PUT BOTH CIGARETTES IN YOUR NOSE!**

**Roman was currently eating a sandwich with 2 lit up cigarettes in his nostrils, and gave a thumbs up to the camera.**

**THANKS LIFE HACKS! YOU'RE THE BEST!**

While the whole audience...well, not whole - there were a few exceptions - tried to refrain themselves of groaning at how cringy it was, Roman massaged the bridge of his nose, silently contemplating at how he'd wish he remained dead.

Neo was deviously smiling all while trying to comfort her only friend.

**ARE YOU TIRED OF ASKING FOR KETCHUP ALL THE TIME?**

**WELL HERE'S AN ALTERNATIVE!**

**Torchwick approached a fast food stand and ordered himself a hot dog.**

**CARRY IT IN YOUR MOUTH ALL DAY AND USE IT WHEN YOU NEED IT!**

**To which Roman spit all the ketchup in the hotdog, with the scene repeating several times in slow motion, with each time from a different angle.**

**To make matters worse, Roman started eating the hot dog and producing some...peculiar noises.**

**OH YEAH!**

Raven was now getting a little bit impatient at all this, so she said:

"How long until this idiocy ends?"

"Eh, 6 more minutes." Bob's voice responded in his cheery tone.

What was worse is the fact that Tai was currently laughing like a Gods damned hyenna, with absolutely no sign of stopping.

**Torchwick was now brushing his teeth with a regular toothbrush, but even after that - the criminal looked quite disatisfied.**

**DO YOU WANT CURLY WHITE TEETH IN THE NATURAL WAY?**

**WELL NOW YOU CAN DO IT FOR CHEAP!**

**SPRAY PAINT YOUR TEETH WHITE!**

**YEAH!**

**To that, Roman took a can of spray paint and puth it all over his mouth while laughing like a maniac.**

"That is NOT the natural wa... oh, what am I doing...This is going to be a repeating thing, won't it?" Weiss asked as she completely gave up upon trying to correct stuff by principle. Yang decided to answer with a quick:

"Yep."

All while Nora repeatedly said to herself_, 'Never again...' _as the screen changed the scene.

**Now, being in the kitchen, Roman was contemplating to himself regarding his weight...while dressed as Cinder Fall.**

**Wig included.**

**DO YOU WANNA LOSE WEIGHT BUT HATE EXERCISE?**

**WELL NOW THERE'S AN ALTERNATIVE!**

**YOU CAN BECOME BULIMIC!**

**The camera switched the scene to the bathroom, where a most striking object in it was a Pumpkin Pete towel with Pyrrha on it.**

**ALL TEENAGERS ARE DOING IT!**

**The scene proceeded with Roman leaning on the toilet and puking out blood by forced vomiting.**

"..."

"Children, I urge you to NOT follow this...this..." a visibly disguisted Glynda was cut off by Qrow, who simply said,

"I'm not drunk enough for this."

Both Pyrrha and Cinder were visibly disturbed and disguisted at the same time, Roman still had his hand stick to his face, the rest of the students were pretty shocked and appaled at the (horrible) advice, Ozpin almost chocked on his coffee...

While Taiyang was still trying... not to die of laughter.

**HELL YEAH!**

**Roman looked at the camera as he smiled and gave it a thumbs up, the blood still pouring out of his mouth.**

**OH YEAH!**

**The camera was now greeted with a scene of Qrow Branwen, who was lying on the couch, with nothing but a pair of red tongs and his red cape on his bare body.**

**TIRED OF WOMEN AND THEIR BULLSHIT?**

**A pantless Roman came over to the couch and lied right next to Qrow, who embraced him with an arm over the shoulder.**

**Roman put his head on the Huntsman's bare chest as Qrow chugged a bit from his flask...**

**WELL NOW YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR SEXUAL PREFERENCE AND BECOME A HOMOSEXUAL!**

**...Which escalated in both Qrow and Roman making orgasmic faces, with Roman moaning with 'pleasure'.**

**After which they started passionately cuddling.**

**DICKS FOR LIFE!**

Now it was no one other's but Roman's turn to laugh like a maniac. The idea of him getting on with Red's uncle was so bizzarely impossible...that it became downright hilarious.

Glynda and Winter couldn't help but blush a bit at the scene, while Ruby did the opposite and covered both her's and Oscar's eyes from the unholy images.

"Great! Now that image is burnt in my memory for the rest of my life!" Yang happily exclaimed in an obvious sarcastic maner.

**IS YOUR PET MISBEHAVING?**

**WELL KNOW YOU CAN PUT IT IN A NICE LONG SOCK!**

**True to the voice, Roman put a small hamster inside a long gray sock...and proceeded to bash the sock everywhere in the kitchen - floors, kitchen tables, sink, and walls were used as places to smash it - all the while the sound of some dramatic music was playing in the background.**

"NO! STOP! YOU...YOU...MONSTER!" Ruby cried in despair, all the while Oscar was restraining her from not jumping at the screen to save the poor gerbil.

Nothing, and absolutely NOTHING can ever make Ruby Rose act like that to Zwei, her favorite dog in the world - no matter how bad he can act.

**Torchwick was now in the same kitchen, but was cleaning some dishes in the sink now - and it was visible that he was having a hard time doing it.**

**DO YOU HATE DOING THE DISHES?**

**WELL FEAR NO MORE!**

**YOU CAN TAKE YOURSELF OUT OF THIS EXISTENTIAL NIGHTMARE!**

**The scene immediately shifted to Roman screaming on top of his lungs as he pointed a shotgun to his mouth.**

"Please children, remember - suicide is NEVER an option." Ozpin said in a strict manner.

_'Heh, should've told Nikos before she made that stupid fucking decision that cost her life.' _Bob thought, a scowl forming on his face as he watched them from a place not visible to the current audience.

**Torchwick was now lying on a bed, his face clearly telling that he didn't have much sleep lately.**

**ARE THOSE BIRDS OUTSIDE CHIRPING A LITTLE TOO LOUD?**

**WELL JUST FUCKING KILL THEM!**

"If only that was easy enough..." Cinder spoke quietly, her gaze set upon Raven.

**ARE YOUR LOUD NEIGHBOORS KEEPING YOU UP AT NIGHT?**

**WELL JUST FUCKING KILL THEM!**

"Must violence always be the solution?" Weiss asked, to which Roman responded with a question:

"Don't you Huntressess kill things for a living?"

"Hmph, touche."

**Roman was now sitting on a table and had a laptop in front of him that was currently in use. It must also be noted that Roman was now dressed just like Adam Taurus - with the mask and poorly placed bull horns.**

**ARE YOU AN IRRATIONAL RADICAL FAUNUS SUPREMACIST? WELL...**

**'Adam' moved a window on the laptop, showing the texted words 'Faunus Master Race' on the desktop.**

**GET LAID YOU FAT PIECE OF SHIT!**

**To which the faux faunus started to scream in both anger and desperation.**

The newly 'appointed' leader of the White Fang had a scowl on his face (if his gritted teeth were any indication). He never liked working with some human trash, such as Roman Torchwick - and this only added fuel to the fire.

Sun and Ghira were laughing out loud, while Illia chuckled a bit at the scene. Blake however, wondered if THAT was actually the reason why Adam... turned into who he is now?

She disregarded the thought completely afterwards.

**The next scene was almost completely identical to the previous one, only instead of the faux Taurus - there sat Roman Torchwick in his usual attire, with a cigar in his mouth.**

**ARE YOU AN IRRATIONAL RADICAL HUMAN SUPREMACIST? WELL...**

**Instead of words, it showed that Roman was actually playing a video game on the laptop**

**GET LAID YOU FAT PIECE OF SHIT!**

**To which Roman gave a big grin with a thumbs up to the camera.**

_'To be honest, it HAS been a while...' _Roman thought to himself.

**The scene now shifted to the living room, where Roman and Junior were watching the newest Spruce Willis movie. Roman looked obviously bored while Junior was a bit passive, with a neutral expression.**

**CAN'T REACH THE REMOTE?**

**Roman started screaming as he extended his hand to reach the far away remote.**

**DON'T EVEN SWEAT IT!**

**JUST CALL UPON THE DEMONS OF OZPIN!**

**The ginger criminal put his hands on his face, leaving a trail of dark green paint on his cheeks - again, while screaming at the top of his lungs.**

**Junior still held his neutral expression.**

**Like a professional.**

Now it was the turn for the Beacon's faculty (with the honorable exception of Glynda) to laugh at the scene.

Even Ozpin himself chuckled at the joke that is made on his expense.

Yang had to break into laughter - she probably couldn't hold a straight face is somebody was doing THAT right next to her.

**After applying the paint, with the screen being distorted in a dark shade of green, Roman (with an expression of someone who is possessed) reached out his hand towards the remote.**

**THOSE GUYS WILL TAKE CARE OF ANYTHING!**

**And with that, the remote flew right into Roman's hands, with the criminal screaming like a maniac.**

**After that, Roman was found sitting on a wooden desk, and was trying not to fall asleep.**

**SCHOOL SUCKS!**

**WELL THANK GOODNESS THERE'S A WAY TO GET OUT OF IT!**

**Torchwick was now dressed in a full White Fang attire (with both his bowler hat and the mask) and crouched as he was using a scroll to phone somebody, reason being...**

**JUST CALL AN ANONYMOUS BOMB THREAT!**

**FAUNUS KILLHAX, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I'M SAYING!**

Blake could only raise an eyebrow for that. Of course that, of all people - Roman Torchwick would make fun of the White Fang and the faunus.

So she decided to let it slide.

She also failed to notice her father's silent chuckle at this.

**HAD TO MUCH TO EAT?**

**Roman was sitting in the kitchen and looked at the half-full plate of raviolli he just ate, and tapped his stomach, indicating that he was actually full.**

**DO YOU NEED TO TAKE YOUR FOOD ON THE GO?**

"YES! ALWAYS!" Nora yellped in anticipation. If there is a useful life hack to bring pancakes wherever she goes - Nora will learn it.

**JUST PUT IT IN YOUR POCKET AND YOU CAN EAT IT ANYWHERE!**

And like that, Nora changed her mind about that.

**YOU CAN EVEN EAT IT AT THE PARK!**

**At the public park, Roman approached a young faunus photographer and asked him if he can sit right by him, to which the faunus politely accepted.**

**What came next was Roman pulling out the raviolli and slurping it quite loudly, to which the photographer gave him a puzzled look.**

**"Hey bro, you want some?" Roman asked as he offered a handful of raviolli to the faunus, to which he replied.**

**"No, I'm fine."**

**The photographer shortly got up and left since Roman was constantly producing moans of pleasure as he ate his food. Torchwick noticed this, and simply said:**

**"It's just a prank bro."**

Both Emerald and Cinder had looks of disguist on their faces, internally questioning the sanity of that reality's Roman.

All the while Mercury was laughing his ass off.

**The segment, of course, did not stop there, as Roman approached a pair of Beacon students and sat right beside them on the grass. He spoke:**

**"Raviolli, raviolli, what's in the pocketolli?"**

The pun was met with large booing, mainly coming from Ruby Rose, while Yang desperately tried not to laugh.

"That's...not funny...at all..." Yang snickered between sentences.

Roman now had an unusual need to end everybody AND himself, just out of spite.

**As it was with the previous case, Roman started producing orgasmic sounds, so the Beacon students got up and left in order to avoid him.**

**"It's just a prank bro. It's just a prank."**

**Later, Roman was currently lying in bed, looking very sad and depressed.**

**ARE YOU AFRAID OF DEATH AND ETERNAL DARKNESS?**

**HAHA, WELL GOOD NEWS!**

**NOW YOU CAN CHOOSE TO BELIEVE IN REINCARNATION!**

**The scene quickly shown an image of Headmaster Ozpin in his office, who was drinking from his cup at the time.**

**OH YEAH!**

**Roman just gave a weak thumbs up to that, but still looked quite depressed and sad.**

Qrow snickered a bit, and said,

"Alright, gotta give it to him - that was a good one."

**In the kitchen, Roman was currently typing on his laptop and accidentally knocked over his cup of water when he tried to reach it.**

**DID YOU SPILL YOUR WATER?**

**The criminal was now crying out of desperation as he was looking towards the spilled cup.**

**HA HA! LOOK AT THIS STUPID PIECE OF SHIT!**

**AH HA HA! YOU FUCKING FREAK!**

The laughter of some of the White Seats (including Mercury) now died, as they all looked at both the Roman in the screen AND the actual Roman there.

"Well - that was...surprisingly dark." Jaune dully noted.

**DO YOU HATE BEING SHOT AT BY HUNSTMEN?**

**Roman, alongside Sun Wukong and a White Fang grunt, was now running for his life as the sounds of police sirens and guns firing echoed throughout the streets of Vale.**

**WELL HERE'S A SIMPLE ALTERNATIVE!**

**JUST DON'T BE A FAUNUS!**

Almost every faunus in the audience either looked offended, confused, or just plain irritated.

Except for Ghira.

Who was screaming of laughter now.

Both Blake's, Illia's and Sun's faces morphed into a look of surprise to see and hear that a former White Fang leader who was passionate about getting the Faunus people the rights they deserve through peaceful ways...

Was now laughing at a racist joke aimed at his expense.

His wife? Wasn't surprised much, to be honest.

"Oh..oh I'm sorry. That joke, offensive as it is, is simply - spot on!" Ghira said as his laughter died down a bit.

**SOCIAL COMMENTARY!**

And his laughter emerged yet again.

**DO YOU HAVE TROUBLE STAYING AWAKE TO DO YOUR HOMEWORK?**

Jaune scratched his head a bit at that. After all - he actually did have quite a bit of a problem regarding that. He hoped that the advice about that won't be ba...

**HA HA! WELL, THAT'S WHAT COCAINE IS FOR! IT'LL WAKE YA RIGHT UP!**

**Roman snorted the drug and lifted his head up, showing that he has a massive nosebleed alongside a manical face of a junkie.**

**OH YEAH! OH YEAH! OH YEAH!**

In fact, the Arc took that back.

This IS definetely BAD advice.

"I urge the students of the Huntsman Academies to NOT use drugs for ANY reason. ESPECIALLY for school-related activities!" Glynda said in her usual strict manor, to which everyone flinched. Any non-existent idea the students may had about that was now long gone.

_'Well, Glynda is still as scary as I remember.' _Tai thought sheepishly.

**UNWANTED PREGNANCY? OH NO!**

**GET RID OF IT THE NATURAL WAY!**

**Roman, yet again dressed as Cinder (alongside the Pyrrha Nikos towel), took a chug from a very suspiciously colored bottle.**

**DRINK SOME NAIL POLISH REMOVAL!**

**And after sitting on the toilet a couple of minutes, Roman got up to show that the whole toilet was now covered in blood.**

**HELL YEAH!**

**Roman sadly looked upon his dirty, bloody hands. It was clear that he regretted his choice, but there was no going back now.**

**OH YEAH!**

Now, remember when Roman felt like he wanted to die of embarassment during the length of the video?

That was actually a ruse that he put up, because in reality - he was holding back. And this segment was the one to burst the bubble...and Roman started to laugh histerically.

Probably because he showed to the general, shocked public a very offensive and disguisting way to perform abortions...while dressed as that bitch of his former boss.

Not even Cinder's death glares could stop the laughing fit.

Glynda, on the other hand, felt like she was going to have a heart attack because of this.

"Surely NOTHING later can be even more disguisting than this." Winter spoke with clear disdain in her voice.

**ARE YOU HORNY?**

Boy she was wrong.

**WELL NOW YOU CAN MAKE YOUR OWN PERSONAL SEX DOLL!**

Ruby let a small yelp as both she and Oscar sealed their ears shut.

**FIRST YOU GRAB AN ORANGE!**

**CUT A NICE PENIS SHAPED HOLE IN THE ORANGE!**

**PUT THE ORANGE AWAY AND PUT A BUNCH OF RUFFIES IN YOUR DRINK!**

**AND THEN GIVE IT TO A GIRL!**

**As Roman did all the previous steps, he went outside and met with Emerald. He offered the confused girl the drink while saying,"Take this. It's going to make you feel REAL good!"**

"Alright, now that's just NOT cool!" Yang protested.

"Agreed. Why did I go to that street thief in the first place, we will never know." Roman added, earning a mean glare from Sustrai on the far side of the seats.

**DO YOU HATE CLEANING?**

**The scene of Roman trying to clean the floor immediately shifted to the scene where Roman put the barrel of a shotgun in front of his face, all while screaming 'no's ' over and over again.**

**JUST DO IT!**

**JUST FUCKING DO IT!**

"Uhh..."

**IS THAT JAR OF PICKLES STILL-**

**As before, the scene where Roman(without his pants) tried to open a jar pickles in an instant changed to him pointing the shotgun at himself.**

**JUST DO IT!**

**OH YEAH!**

**IS YOU NEIGHBOUR'S TREE STILL-**

**JUST DO IT YOU FUCKING PUSSY!**

**IS YOUR LIGHTBULB BROKEN-?**

**JUST DO IT!**

**END IT!**

The interesting development here was that Ruby now looked particularly worried at the whole thing. While some of the others snickered at this, she just couldn't help herself but to at least try and...

**ARE YOU LOOKING FOR VITAMINS?**

**Roman gritted his teeth as he still had the shotgun in the direction of his face.**

"Please STOP! DON'T DO IT!" Ruby yelled, as she stood up and grabbed her head, hoping that her plead will somehow be heard through the screen.

Roman, well the ACTUAL Roman, looked at her... like she was an idiot. So he said,

"Red, you do realize that this whole thing is made as a joke, right? Don't get me wrong - I'm flattered that you care so much about wether my hide is ended by yours trully or thrown into a maximum security prison."

"What he said Ruby - this video is simply made for comedic purposes. Albeit bad, disguisting and offenisve, but still. It's only very poor comedy." Weiss explained, to which Ruby got back to her set and shrugged in embarassement.

"Okay..." She muttered quietly.

**The scene now presented Roman and Oscar crouching beneath a bunch well placed at some tree in Vale. Oscar picked up a petal from a flower and brought it to Roman, who licked the petal for good measure.**

**"Smell that shit. It's fucking good."**

**"Oh yeah."**

"HAH! Oscar is cute even when he uses curse words!" Nora said, prompting the actual Oscar to blush a bit at that.

**DO YOU WANT TO START A ROSEGARDEN ON A-**

**And then the whole video turned into a montage where a screaming Roman Torchwick is trying to kill himself with a shotgun.**

**KILL YOURSELF!**

**OH YEAH!**

**OH YEAH!**

**OH YEAH!**

**OH YEAH!**

**KILL YOURSELF!**

**OH YEAH!**

**"Hey faggot! Where did you get that hat?"**

**Roman could only put his hand on his chin, and ignored the rude comment.**

**OH YEAH!**

**OH YEAH!**

**OH YEAH!**

**OHOH YEYEAH!**

**And then the scene suddenly went into slowmotion, it's colors completely drained - leaving it black and white, as an unknown voice started speaking with emotional piano music in the background,**

**"Because life doesn't happen to you - it happens for you. How do I know this?"**

**"I don't. But I'm making sound, and that's the important thing."**

**And the video ended with the words 'Lyff Hak' on the screen.**

"That...is a very reasonable point." Ironwood said, surprised to see a meaningful ending to this...video.

**TAKING THE TRASH OUT CAN BE A BIT OF A HASSLE!**

"End this, PLEASE!" Weiss desperately begged.

**The scene of the trash all around shifted to a close up of a 'possessed' Roman Torchwick, with green demonic paint on his face.**

**JUST CALL UPON THE DEMONS OF OZPIN!**

**Roman twidled his fingers, and the garbage bags floated out through the door.**

**BLACK MAGIC!**

**OH YEAH!**

**And the video now trully ended...with an image of Proffesor Port barely fitting in a race car.**

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Is it over?"

The question was asked by Emerald, to which Bob appeared before them all in a puff of smoke and said:

"Yes. Yes it is."

And to that, some of the audience members let out a sigh of relief.

Qrow took a sip of his flask and suddenly said:

"Tho...Demons of Ozpin? Is there something you're not telling us, Headmaster?"

He was joking of course, and the Headmaster chuckled at that and responded:

"I assure you that I myself am no demon, nor do I have demon under m-" Ozpin was then cut off by Jaune, who said:

"Bob? What are you doing?"

Indeed, Bob planted both of his hands to his face...and screamed as he left a trail of green paint on his cheeks.

Almost everyone in the White Seats were shocked at the development, as Bob's eyes rolled in the back of his head...and telekinetically took a handful of popcorn from Blake.

"Wow. Guess you're right, big guy - Ozpin literally IS a demon." Mercury commented to Hazel, to which the man only made a neutral hum at that.

While Nora jumped in excitement and said:

"I WANNA TRY THAT!"

* * *

**Inspired by: "100 ACCURATE LIFE HACKS" by FilthyFrank**


	6. Chapter 6

The green paint that Bob used to 'conjure' the invisible demons proved to be quite a hassle to remove, and so Bob had to speak to everyone with paint residue on his cheeks.

A fitting comeback, as he did make some of the students question their Headmaster's true origins - much to Ozpin's dismay and Qrow's amusement. Bob could only hope that the paint will come off by the end of the chapter.

"What is next on the chopping block?" Yang causally asked, to which Bob turned towards her(earning a few giggles from Nora and Ruby respectively, for obvious reasons) and said:

"The next segment is an action one," which made a few of the younger members of the audience cheer at that,"It's a zombie flick - pure and simple! Well, to be precise - multiple zombie flicks!"

Cinder Fall didn't know much about movies - mainly due to reason that she didn't even bother herself with such trivial things, as there were plans that needed to be executed. Of course, that did not mean that she didn't know how to relax and take a break.

Whoever made the saying 'Evil never sleeps' was either one of those paranoid veteran heroes, or a pathetic 3rd grade villain.

"Oh? Who are the unlucky actors this time?" a smug Raven asked, and as a response - Bob shrugged and, before the screen went lit, said:

"See for yourself!"

**An ominous tone started playing as 6 words appeared on the screen:**

**2 WEEKS AFTER THE FIRST INFECTION**

"Well, if it was only 2 weeks - surely it can't be that bad, can it?" Oscar asked, which prompted an immediate response with a question from Ruby, who said,"You...haven't seen any zombie horror movies at all?"

**The words dissapeared in a blur, and were replaced by the sounds of buzzing flies and a ghastly sight of a hand that is lifted in the air, with it's thumb missing, by the looks of it - it was violently chewed off.**

**As it got clearer, the background behind the hand showed flashlights of 4 silhouettes who were approaching it with walking pace.**

**"Hold up." A gruffy man's voice spoke.**

**The scene shifted and showed that the 4 figures were none others than Jaune Arc, Mercury Black, Qrow Branwen and Blake Belladona, all of them armed with rifles and other equipment.**

"This is an alternate reality? Cuz I don't think those goody two shoes would ever let me free with a gun, zombie apocalypse or not." Mercury spoke, and quickly got a snarky response from Qrow,

"Yeah. Must be one of those."

**Qrow crouched and took a small bit of green goo on his fingers and said,**

**"Ain't seen anything like this before."**

**"Geez, don't let that stop you smearing that all over yourself."**

**The voice who responded belonged to Mercury, obviously. Qrow spared a glance at the grey haired boy before getting up and wiping the green goo on his jacket, and said:**

**"They are changing."**

**Mercury jolted as soon as he noticed what Qrow had done, and said,**

**"GodDAMMIT Qrow! Agh, it stinks!" Mercury said as he tried to remove the stain from his jacket, all while Jaune chuckled at the whole scene.**

"Wow. You totally deserved that." Yang said before letting out a small laugh, while Mercury looked a little bit annoyed at the comment.

**The slightly comedic scene was interrupted by the sudden weep of a girl, that got the full attention of the whole group.**

**Qrow turned to his right and found the door, and behind it was probably the source of the crying.**

**"Someone's still alive!" Blake noted.**

"Why do I have the feeling that everything is going to go south from here?" Neptune rhetorically asked, with uncertainty in his voice. Sun, in his casual relaxed tone, responded,

"It's horror, dude. It's bound to happen! And besides - I'm sure Blake can take on anything!"

The last statement caused Blake to try and scratch away the blush.

**The camera was angled in front of Qrow and Blake when they opened the door. Both of them turned on their flashlights as they searched the pitch black room, hoping that they would find an another survivor.**

**"Hello? Hello?" Blake called, but nobody replied, and the crying still went on.**

**As they were moving forward, a female chorus started to sing an eery tune with the piano playing in the background, and the sound of crying became louder and louder.**

**Blake's flashlight grazed a shape of a human-looking figure, prompting the girl to say,**

**"Hey, it's okay. We're gonna get yo-"**

**But a sudden thunder flash briefly showed that the crying figure wasn't human at all - if the sharp elongated claws on her hands were a pointer.**

**Qrow reacted quickly and put Blake's flashlight down and said,**

**"Lights off!"**

Now this actually piqued Salem's interest - a living female 'undead' equipped with sharp long nails who attracts victims with her sobbing? She must look into this further.

**Both of the survivors starred at the inhuman crying girl as they slowly retreated towards the exit.**

**Meanwhile, Jaune and Mercury were outside, guarding Qrow and Zoey who were still inside the building.**

**A sudden mash of growling and unnatural yelling came from an alley, and Jaune immediately saw the zombies who were running at their current location.**

**"Oh shit. SHIT. SHIT!" Jaune screamed and went into the room as Mercury started firing his shotgun at the incoming zombies.**

"Hey, how come the zombies are running? Aren't all of them supposed to be slow and be in the whole _'braiins' _thing?" Yang asked, baffled by the scene.

"And our fearless leader goes off to alert Qrow and Blake!" Nora happily said, making a sweatdrop appear on Jaune's forehead. Even he can he that THAT Jaune was completely terrified.

**"THEY'RE COMING!" Jaune screamed at the top of his lungs...and accidentally pointed his light at the Witch, shocking Jaune in the process, who muttered,**

**"WHAT THE...?",before Blake cut him off by saying,**

**"RUN LIKE HELL!"**

"Good job Arc." Weiss sarcastically said, earning a both a glare and a cold response from Pyrrha, who said,

"I am sure it could've happened to everyone."

**After all three of them exited the room, Qrow managed to shut the door behind him, blocking the exit for the raging Witch.**

**Jaune held the door with his shoulder, but the large dents at the centre already forming in a fast pace before a clawed hand made a hole through the door and started swinging it around in rage. Arc screamed in terror as he started unloading lead from his gun into the infected.**

**The next couple of scenes were mainly the infected getting gunned down by Mercury, Blake and Qrow. Jaune on the other hand had a bit of a trouble with the raging witch, and screamed:**

**"Why won't you just die!" And just like that, the Witch died.**

**"Stay together!" Mercury said as he unloaded a buckshot into an oncoming zombie.**

"Mercury giving useful advice? This must be a dream." Emerald sarcastically said, to which Mercury crossed his arms and smuggly responded,"Oh ha ha. Laugh it up - your brains were probably eaten the moment the apocalypse started."

**Jaune stepped forward and started shooting at the oncoming wave. The survivors, however, did not notice the presence of an unusual infected behind them on the fire escape(nor did they hear it's chilling howl), until it's tongue wrapped itself around Qrow and started dragging him away.**

**Mercury ,luckily, immediatelly noticed and shot the Smoker dead. As he helped Qrow get up on his feet, he shoot the two more incoming infected from both flanks, and said in a cocky tone:**

**"Happy birthday."**

"Wait! So they aren't enemies here? I mean - Mercury didn't have to save uncle Qrow, but he did it anyway!" Ruby noted, confusion found in her voice. Qrow raised an eyebrow and looked straight at Black, and also wondered himself if the kid would actually save him if something like that happened.

Then again - the Branwen was pretty sure he could've helped himself too. The Qrow on the screen probably didn't have any Aura, so he had to rely on the help of others.

_'Hmph. Show off.' _Yang thought as she was more interested in the happenings on the screen.

**Blake shot a few more rounds from her pistols before pulling out a small white pipe that had a complex of strange wirings on it.**

**"FIRE IN THE HOLE!" Blake shouted as she threw the Pipe Bomb that started making a ticking sound.**

**The bomb attracted the other infected while the survivors ducked in cover behind a car.**

**The Pipe Bomb exploded and took a bunch of infected with it.**

"So any kind of sound attracts these creatures?" Ironwood curiously said to himself, wondering if some kind of a similar device can work on the creatures of Grimm as well.

**A Bulkhead flew slowly above the survivors as the bomb exploded. Jaune turned around and noticed the flying vehicle had searchlights on it, and started running towards it.**

**"HEY! DOWN HERE! WE'RE NOT INFECTED! DOWN HERE!"**

**Jaune entered the well known streets of Vale as he followed the flying Bulkhead. But little did he know that he was being followed by a hooded figure, who jumped from bulding to building.**

"I don't know why, but I've got a slight feeling that the parkour guy isn't friendly." Jaune winced, as he predicted the possible outcome of the scene.

**The Bulkhead, however, did not notice Jaune and went on it's way.**

**"Dammit!" Jaune cursed as he turned around to meet up with the rest. His trip was cut short as the hooded figure pounced him and started tearing him with his claws.**

**Convientently - Blake was nearby and managed to shove off the Hunter and shoot him a few times. The killing shot was landed by a lying Jaune who's bullet pushed the dead Hunter towards a nearby car...that happened to have an active alarm.**

**As the alarm sound went off, so did every infected in that block went towards the location of the survivors.**

"Nice job Arc. If I didn't knew better - I would've thought you were actively trying to kill us there." Mercury 'appraising' tone was met by harsh glares of Jaune's friends.

As for Jaune himself, the former leader of team JNPR could only sigh. Much as he hated to admit - Merc was right, as he would've probably make the same mistakes as his counterpart on the screen.

But hey - at least he always makes up for mistakes later on, right?

**"This is gonna get bad." Qrow noted as he readied his rifle.**

"Pointing out the obvious was always your specialty, brother." Raven noted, to which Qrow's response was...taking a swig from his bottle.

**The four survivors got together, each one of them covering their respectful sides. The oncoming horde, however, looked like it was going to overrun them just by sheer numbers.**

**Even with that in mind, Mercury did not falter...not even when a car came trashing through the horde of the oncoming infected and into a fence behind them, crushing it in the process.**

**The car puncher was a really big zombie with overmuscular hands, and was approaching the survivors at a terrifying speed.**

"Well, that...thing cannot compare to the Grimm we have on Remnant. It's not even that scary!" Weiss said.

"I think that these four there have no Aura - meaning that it could probably crush them with ease." Blake responded. Weiss could only nod in agreement to Blake's argument and said,"Point taken."

**"Run or shoot?" Jaune asked as he was backing down from the oncoming Tank, who was punching common infected left and right to get to the survivors.**

**"RUN OR SHOOT?!" Jaune asked again, and got a response from Qrow who said,**

**"Both!"**

**And the four of them did what Qrow suggested, as they exited the streets and entered an another back alley while shooting at the Tank and the other infected.**

**The Tank proved to be quite determined in chasing the survivors down as they have took a few turns through the urban alleys. In the next second, Jaune pointed his finger and the nearest fire escape and said,**

**"Get to the roof!"**

**Blake jumped first and quickly climbed the ladders, and was followed by Jaune. Mercury stood last as he let Qrow climb first. He taunted the zombies by saying,**

**"Come on...Come on!"**

**He shot a few shells at the incoming Tank, but the bruiser infected grabbed an infected and hit Mercury with him. The Tank raised his arms high up, intending to crush Mercury to the ground, but was stopped dead in it's tracks as Qrow went forward and stopped it, giving Black the chance to get up and climb the ladders of the fire escape.**

**The Tank's attention was shifted toward's Qrow, as the older man barely managed to dodge an incoming slam that managed to completely break apart a brick wall. As it was retracting his hands from the broken wall, the Tank picked up a pile of concrete and sent it flying towards the fire escape - denting it in the process.**

_'So these evolved types are capable of basic combat thinking. Interesting indeed.' _Watts thought. After all - everything should be accounted as a possibilty when dealing with the enemies of the Queen.

**A common infected was shot dead in front of Qrow when he went towards the latter. He looked up and saw Blake dual wielding her pistols, and hearing her say,"GO! I'll hold them off!"**

**The Tank was quite determined to end the lives of the survivors as he jumped on the metal construction of the fire escape, denting it by his own weight. Qrow hurried up, barely managing to avoid it's grasps as it climbed up.**

**With the help of Jaune, Qrow escaped certain death as the blonde lifted him up the roof. The Tank then shifted his attention towards Blake, as he used his immense weight to break apart the fire escape.**

**Blake almost fell and dropped a pistol, but she managed to grab ahold of the handrail. She then made a jump from the falling fire escape, but was not high enough to grab the ledge.**

**"Mercury!" Blake cried, but the grey-haired boy managed to grab her arm in time and pulled her on the roof.**

"Quite a gentleman there Black. Never knew you had the decency to save former enemies from falling to their deaths." Roman snarked, but the assassin's son was quick to respond,

"Safety in numbers, Torchwick. That, and she's the only girl in the group there."

"You're disguisting." Emerald noted, as both Yang and Blake nodded in agreement with the pickpocket.

**Jaune let out a breath, and joyfully said,"We made it...I can't believe we made it!"**

**The optimistic notion was countered by Qrow, who took a swing from his flask and said,**

**"Kid, we just crossed a street. Let's not throw a party yet until we're out of the city."**

"But hey - if they survived that, they can survive anything!" Nora chirpped. Ren, however, wasn't as sure as his partner was, and had his doubts about that.

He proved to be right.

**The camera shifted to a bird's eye view, showing a large 'SOS' sign written on the floor of the roof...and the street's below the building that were crawling with thousands upon thousands of infected. An eerie piano tune started playing shortly before the whole screen was cut black with words:**

**To be continued...**

**Left 4 Dead**

"Oh! It's called like that because there are four of them!" Ruby noted, in an epiphany like way.

"And because they are left for dead. Cool title tho." Yang added with a nod of approval.

"Leaves much to be desired, oh yes." Tyrian smiled in his usual way as he rubbed his palms.

"It's starting again." Adam bluntly noted as the screen lit up once more.

**The screen went to life and played a country - like tune in the background.**

**The scene opened with a close up of 4 people slowly passing by a cheap-looking motel. The group consisted of the burly man known as Peter Port, Roman Torchwick, Emerald Sustrai and Sun Wukong.**

"Ahem. What were you saying again Merc?" Emerald boasted with a sly smile, and Mercury only imitated a sigh, expressing 'dissapointment' at his partners unrealised demise.

**The camera slowly went up to show the motel sign that said:**

**CLOSED UNTIL**  
**FURTHER NOTICE**  
**DUE TO SICKNESS**

"I believe sickness is quite the understatement here!" Oobleck said in a fast paced manner, while his colleague Port was smiling. After all - he was in the clip, and what better way to make the most out of a zombie apocalypse than to hunt down a new kind of prey?

**A poorly placed barricade of a wooden door was punched through as Port reached out and unlocked the door by using a knob from the other side. The whole group entered the safe house.**

**Suddenly, Port's voice spoke:**

**"Report unusual behavior."**

**The scene showed Roman opening a cash register with his gun, only to find out that it was empty. The criminal however smiled at that.**

Ironwood let out a hearty laugh at that, and said,

"It would be unusual if a criminal didn't check that right away."

"Ha ha, very funny." Roman responded in his sarcastic tone.

**"Barricade your homes."**

**Sun opened a gun locker and revealed that it was packed with weapons and weapon mods. The monkey faunus grinned at that.**

"You like weapons too?!" Ruby asked in an excited manner. Sun placed both of his hands behind his back as he casually responded:

"Of course! Moreso when there's a zombie apocalypse going around!"

**"Avoid all contact with infected individuals."**

**Sun passed a pistol to Emerald, who merely pushed it away as she was focusing on a map stretched on the wooden desk.**

**"Wait for official instructions."**

**Port read outloud and laughed at the last sentence as he crumbled the piece of paper he held in his hand.**

**"Wait my ass, I say!" he said as he took a bite of a chocolate bar.**

The younger members of the audience giggled at that - it wasn't everyday you hear a jovy good man like Peter Port say a bad word.

Glynda didn't even bothered giving a lecture, as the faculty(Port included), alongside Ironwood, had a laugh at that.

**"Kill all sons of bitches."**

**An armed to the teeth Sun Wukong spoke as he cocked his shotgun.**

**"Those are MY official instructions."**

"Mandatory pumping of a shotgun. Never gets old!" Yang smiled as she continued watching the clip.

**As soon as Sun kicked open the safe house door, the survivors started shooting the infected all over the place.**

**With the music kicking in.**

**The setting changed from morning to nighttime, the location changing to a backyard of some. The scene showed Port punching a zombie in the face, with Emerald hitting another zombie with an axe.**

**"This used to be a nice neighborhood!" Port yelled as he smashed the infected's head with the butt of his shotgun.**

**Meanwhile, Sun and Roman were running from a giggling hunchbacked zombie. The Jockey, however, proved to be faster as he jumped on Sun ,pinning him down on the hood of a car before steering him backwards.**

**As if it was...**

"I-Is that thing... riding him?!" Blake was shocked, at least.

_'And it is pulling him back away from the others. These...unusual forms of these creatures seem to have a form of intelligence...'_

_'Just like the Grimm.' _Salem finished Ozpin's thought with her own.

**Roman turned behind and immediately noticed his fellow survivor in trouble and took the shot.**

**The muzzle flash of his pistol served as a scene changer, where a mud-like zombie started running at the screen on his fours, while a flashlight was flickering at it.**

**Sun and Emerald were hiding behind a wooden barricade in the next scene. The green-haired girl shushed the Faunus as a horendous looking zombie...woman, green liquid sizzling from her wide open mouth started to emerge behind the cover.**

**"This is some grim shit we've got ourselves into..." Emerald spoke, betraying fear in her voice.**

"Alright - that...thing is just gross." Yang bluntly said, to which Sun added in agreement,

"You can say that again."

**The zombie vomited acid in the direction of the screen before the scene changed - with Emerald pointing her gun at the oncoming horde, saying:**

**"Get back! Get back!"**

**The other survivors were also running from the zombies, with Sun carrying Roman's arm around his shoulder.**

**The sudden transposition was now on a fire escape of a bulding, with Port looking quite exhausted, as the burly man said:**

**"Who is insane enough...to put an evac station...upon thirty flights of cursed stairs...?"**

**Roman caught up on him from behind, saying as he himself was also climbing the stairs:**

**"C'mon Port...Maybe the Bulkhead...Maybe it's made from beef stakes...he he..."**

**Safe to say, if Port's facial expression was anything come by, the older man was NOT amused.**

"Renny, Renny - a whole aircraft made from meat! That sounds gr-" Nora's rambling was cut off by Ren, who said:

"Nora, I can't make that much - even if I wanted to."

The Valkyrie was silenced a bit, before saying:

"Well, how about a meat bicycle? I mean - just put a few sausages here, some minced meat there..."

Ren only smiled at his partners antics as he watched the clip.

**"Hey, where is everybody? Hello?"**

**"Oh, this is not happening..."**

**"Is anyone here?"**

**"This is not happening."**

**Roman approached the edge of the roof as he set sight upon the Bulkheads...that were going to the opposite direction of their location.**

**"Why aren't they saving us, like they were supposed to?!" Port yelled out, enraged at the current situation.**

**Roman, who bent over from exhaustion, lifted his head up and said:**

**"Look's like there's been a change of plans."**

**The change of plans being the Aviation now bombing the zombie-filled city.**

"B-But they are still there! How can they start dropping bombs while there are still people there who are alive?!" Ruby asked, clearly upset at the twist of the clip.

"Miss Rose, during...these kinds of situations, evacuation is the primary mission - if possible, and it always must be done quickly. We simply cannot save everybody." Ironwood responded sternly.

"Like the way you '_rescued' _all the people from Mountain Glenn?" Cinder suddenly spoke, with smugness in her tone.

"We didn't had a choice with Mountain Glenn! It was lost before we could've done anything." The General scowled at the question. Some remained unconvinced, as Raven only thought,

_'Whatever helps you sleep at night, General.'_

**Emerald ducked under a humvee to cover herself from the debris and shrapnel of a dropped bomb. She had a walkie takie in her hands, and said to it:**

**"Stop the bombing run!"**

**To which a distorted, man's voice responded,"Command, it's coming from the bridge!"**

**The said bridge was collapsing under heavy fire from the Bulkheads surrounding it, causing for Port, who was running on the bridge highway, to get blasted off of his feet as the bombs fell on the vehicles near him. Roman was luckily there to help him get back on his feet.**

**The next scene shifted to a very tall zombie with a massive hand crushing through the wooden barricades(while eliciting an inhuman scream) , using his massive arm to grab Sun, who was on the ground from the impact of the Charger's dash.**

**"It's got me!"**

**Sun exclaimed a painful yelp as the Charger smashed him into the ground.**

"Well, you know what they say about zombies with one big arm..." Yang had a jester's smirk on her face - an indication for other's that she's going to crack a terrible pun. Sun cut her off by saying,

"Not helping here. Not helping at all."

Blake could only feel a twinge of sympathy, as she looks at his counterparts pulverization.

**The next scene showed Roman climbing up the construction of a rollercoaster road and grabbing Emerald's hand.**

**"Hang on!" Emerald said.**

**Roman did hang on for his dear life, as he looked down to see a horde lead by a clown-dressed zombie climbing towards him.**

"Clowns becoming zombies? Now that's just a combination of a LOT of different fears." Neptune shuddered at his own words, to which Jaune immediatelly responded:

"As if gorilla zombies on steroids, tongue wrappers, parkour zombies and that one that spits acid aren't the stuff of nightmares already..."

**The following explosion that engulfed the clown zombie served as a scene changer, where 3 people in hazmat suits were walking through the fires as if they were non existant.**

**A laser was pointed at the head of one of the hazmat people, revealing that those people are actually zombies.**

"Fireproof zombies? _Wonderful_." Roman 'happily' exclaimed.

**The change of scene now showed the 4 surviors rushing towards the elevator of the mall, and a panicking Sun whose sniper rifle was tackled by the infected.**

**Now unarmed, Sun rushed towards the elevator door and would've made it if it weren't for a Smoker who constricted him with his tongue.**

**"Ah, what the...AGH!"**

**Sun screamed as the tongue completely enveloped his arms and torso, while two common infected were pulling him from the elevator.**

"Alright, is it me, or is Sun the..."

"Yang, don't say it-"

"Butt monkey here? Eh? Eh?" Yang exclaimed. Facepalms and shaking heads were the reactions of most of the audience members.

Sun crossed his arms and bluntly said:

"You know what - I'm not even mad at that."

**Roman reacted quickly and grabbed Sun, pulling him towards the elevator, while Port revved his chainsaw and started slicing down the infected and the tongue that was constructed the faunus. The elevator door closed as the tongue was cut off, and the screen went black.**

Some younger members were a bit uncomfortable at the sight of gore, guts, blood and bones spraying all over in the scene.

"So...much...red paint..." Nora murmured, though not in disguist - but in amazement.

Mercury just nodded in approval .

**The screen lit up again, showing Sun, who was currently moaning in pain as he removed the remains of the tongue on him.**

**When he lifted his head up, he was met with a very unpleasant sight.**

**"Holy shit."**

**The sight of hundreds upon hundreds of infected roaming around the mall's ground floor, like a colony of ants slowly moving around the ground.**

**Before Sun could sulk in depression, Port offered a hand, which Sun took as the burly man lifted him up, a smile stretching on his face.**

**"Hey...Kill all son's of bitches, right?"**

**It was Emerald, who gave him a grenade launcher as a replacement.**

**4TH FLOOR**

**All of the survivors were on a concert stage, fireworks blazing around them. Roman swung an electric guitar at the closest infected as Port threw a pack of fireworks at the horde.**

**"I have not..."**

**3RD FLOOR**

**Emerald cocked the machine gun turret she and the three other survivors held their ground against the oncoming wave in an entrance of a ruined manor that was overgrown by plants and trees.**

**"Come this far..."**

**2ND FLOOR**

**The survivors were battling a Tank on a bridge, which was quickly dispatched when it came to close by Sun with a point blank shot of the grenade launcher.**

**"To die now!"**

**GROUND FLOOR**

**The elevator door reflected the shambling infected for a second before it opened, revealing the 4 determined survivors that were ready to face them all. Port revved up his chainsaw again before the screen went black again.**

**Left 4 Dead 2**

"Well - it is certainly a bit more exciting than the first one." Pyrrha commented.

"There was a lot more ass kicking in the second part, that's for sure!" Yang said in a cheerful voice.

"The first piece leans more on the horror aspects, while the second seems to favor the action theme going around." Winter sternly said in her usual lecturing tone.

"Ah, but there IS more!" Bob said all of a sudden as he snapped his fingers, lighting up the screen once again.

**A heavily armored train crashed through a barricade on the tracks, crushing several infected in their way, with the one closest to the screen having his thumb violently torn off, while the rest of his fingers twitched upwards.**

**The sound of crashing could not be heard, as all of the SFX was replaced by the music that started with the deep tone of the trumpet.**

**The blackout then revealed both Mercury and Jaune out of the train, with Jaune having a desperate look on his face, while Mercury was clearly angry at the present situation.**

**Blake had an apathetic look on her face, until Qrow nonshalantly offered her a drink. Her expression instantly changed into one of disguist.**

"Uh...did something happen between them? And why is it all so..." A worried Ruby couldn't find the word to describe the setting. Blake was quick to jump in and say,

"Depressing?"

"Maybe it's because the four of us are still fighting zombies? I mean, I could be wrong." The hint of sarcasm in Mercury's voice did not go unnoticed.

**Jaune just was looking at his sub-machine gun and it's emptied clip without his usual optimism. Behind him was Blake, who called him and passed him a katana.**

**The Smoker was watching the two survivors while the Spitter next to him just pulled her lower jaw with her mouth.**

"Ew!" Ruby winced. The female acid-spitting zombies were DEFINITELY not her favorite type.

**A murder of crows flied above Mercury, who was searching the boat. The boy saw the irritated witch in front of him a bit too late, as the screen zoomed in on his face.**

**The scene was cut by Qrow, who pushed the button of the generator - causing the bridge in front of him to lift up. He gazed upon a Jockey, who also looked towards him as the drums started beating louder.**

**Blake was now on a makeshift interesection between a high pile of sand and a boat, and went straight towards the 'bridge', fully aware that there was a horde on both sides of her path.**

**The drums started beating faster.**

**The horde of the infected started waking up as both Jaune and Mercury were rushing towards a half-sunken boat in their attempt to reach higher ground.**

"Wow - the odds are really stacked against you guys." Neptune noticed as he scratched his head.

Even though her partner could be an ass sometimes (well, most of the times, if she's being honest to herself), Emerald couldn't help but worry if Mercury will really survive.

**The following scenes went quite quickly as the drums were beating at maximum speed and power, showing the survivors shooting, blasting, slicing and generally slaughtering the infected before the drums stopped at the scene were Blake pulled out both of her pistols, aimed at the hordes coming from both sides on the crane 'bridge'.**

"Blakey sure knows how to steal the show like that!" Yang cheered. Blake smiled at her partner's usual comments.

Seriously, that shot really looked badass.

**The fast paced scenes were then cut by a slowed up shot of not one, not two - but three enraged Tanks rampaging on top of the descending street.**

**The shot was cut by a full face view of a pretty determined-looking Qrow.**

**The survivors seemed to be at their last legs, as Jaune layed down injured on a car with his pistol pulled out, Blake rushing the reload of her pistol while Mercury wielding his emptied shotgun like a bat. They were all backing down to a dead end of the bridge...**

**While Qrow was steadily approaching the never ending horde that was rushing towards them, eager to end their lives.**

_'Huh, so that's how it goes for me...Didn't expect anything else, honestly...'_Qrow thought, his expression completely neutral.

"What does that fool think is doing?!" Winter shouted nervously. The Scnhee had a vague idea of what Qrow's goal was, but she refused to...

"Uncle Qrow...no..." Ruby sulked in - she knew what he was doing. Yang only embraced her sister with an arm around her shoulder.

Jaune and Pyrrha briefly looked at each other - they both knew what that moment means...

**Blake noticed the passing Qrow who had a Molotov in his hands and shouted his name.**

**Qrow simply jumped down the street and threw the fire bottle at the Tanks before the whole screen was engulfed in white.**

**The Sacrifice**

**It's your funeral**

The audience now fell silent for a few seconds.

Before anyone could say anything, Bob decided to speak up with words,

"Well, as a good friend of mine would say - 'It's only a movie, darling!' "

Bob's sentence managed to lift up the atmosphere, as a few chuckles could be heard.

"Any more?" Ren patiently asked.

"Sure!" Bob quickly replied.

**Mercury climbed down the bridge and onto the metallic walkway. He was resting his hands on the support as he noticed Emerald climbing up the stairs.**

**"Ugh, I hate these stairs." Emerald spoke, prompting Mercury to respond a bit dramatically,**

**"By the Gods, you hate stuff too?!"**

**"Sure...I never really thought about it, but yeah - I hate stuff. I hate those stairs."**

**"I know, right?"**

Yang turned to her left to face Emerald, and she said to her:

"You know, for all that is worth - I can see how Black can be...weird."

"And you don't have to be with him every day." Emerald responded.

"You do realize that I'm here, right?" Mercury commented in between the conversation.

**"I hate that bridge."**

**"It's so stupid!"**

**"I hate your jacket." Emerald finished as she pointed towards Mercury's choice of clothing.**

**"What now? Ah, I don't think this is gonna work out." Mercury said as he left the walkway and a catchy tune started playing.**

**The Passing**

**Nobody survives forever**

'Except Ozpin, unfortunately.' Salem thought.

"You gotta admit - you'd look REAL cute together, eh?" Bob said with a big wide grin. Both Mercury and Emerald glanced at each other quickly before saying at the same time:

"Nope."

Bob bowed his head and let his arms go down in defeat, as he sighed and said:

"Well I tried. Anyways, last one before I go!"

**Who's cooking tonight?**

**The camera zoomed in on Port's stomach that somehow fluctuated with it's growling.**

**"Ah curses! Roman!"**

**[PLAY: Grandia - Sea Cat Restaurant Lilly]**

**Roman was sitting next to Port, and was reading the newspapers that managed to conceal both his entire face and torso.**

**He was also trying to ignore the moustached man.**

**"Roman."**

**The criminal was still reading the newspapers, but was slowly tapping the fingers on his free hand, indicating that he was slowly losing his patience.**

**"ROman!"**

**And just like that, the newspapers combusted into flames and were reduced to ash in a mere second, revealing Roman's twitching face.**

**"Yea?"**

"Oh no - this is one of these, isn't it?" Weiss asked, with a half-horrified expression. Yang had a very wide grin, while Blake tried to contain her annoyment.

Ruby just accepted her fate, and said:

"Yep."

**"I'm hungry!"**

**Roman now looked quite grumpy as he simply shrugged at Port's request. Port however pointed at the kitchen with his finger and said:**

**"Steak dinner."**

**Roman moved his shortly towards the kitchen and went back to Port as his grumpy face soon turned into one of purely clean sarcasm and raised his index finger in the air as he said:**

**"Yes, I will deep fry you an entire goddamn cow."**

**"OH YES! HA HA HA!"**

**"I'm just playing with you man. I can't believe you fell for tha-"**

**"I could go for..."**

**Roman's face now turned into one of mild shock.**

**"Barbeque bacon and eggs..."**

**"Port no."**

**"Large order of fries..."**

**"No."**

**"Orange soda with milk..."**

**"NO!"**

**"With a piece of hot apple pie!"**

**"NO!"**

"YES!" Nora screamed with a wide salivating grin on her face. The situation could've gotten worse if it weren't for Ren to calm her down with a few words nobody could hear and Bob, who just materialized some fries and orange soda, which the Valkyrie started gobbling immediatelly.

**"Get your BOTTOM," to which Port pointed at his butt, before assuming the original sitting position,"in the-"**

**Port was then cut off by a mean-looking Roman who clipped his way towards Port around the table before screaming outloud:**

**"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"**

Neo could barely contain herself from laughing as she held her mouth with her hand and rocked in her seat.

"You were always really demanding with your food, Peter!" Oobleck quickly spoke, readjusting his glasses once more.

"A hunter always must have his belly full! After all - you cannot have something simple as hunger to distract you from your prey!" Port quickly replied in his happy manner.

"You do have a point, Proffessor." Ironwood agreeded with a nod.

**"Mister...I don't think I fancy your attitude."**

**"Kiss my ass-"**

**Port then struck Roman with a quick punch to his face.**

**"Port."**

**Roman then pointed his finger at the older man and said:**

**"You do that again and I will-"**

**The said finger was then chomped by Port, and sprayed blood all over the place as a result.**

The whole audience winced, with several 'oh's' added into the mixture. Safe to say...

"THAT escalated quickly!" Yang noted.

**[PLAY: Rabbids Go Home - Horã Moldoveneasca de Joc]**

**Roman screamed in pain, but was able to think straight enough to punch Port from his finger, sending the older man flying towards the wall and crashing onto it.**

**The impact was so strong it knocked Emerald, who was sitting in the bedroom, of her chair.**

**Port screamed in rage as he threw a painting at the criminal. Roman, however, flipped the table and was succesfully able to block the oncoming strike. The criminal mockingly laughed at the professor before being hit by the second painting.**

**Roman replied by kicking the table, which smashed Port onto the wall again. It also resulted in a painting on the other room being nailed onto Emerald's head as she fell the chair.**

"Ugh, ouch." Nora yellped at the sight.

**Port didn't manage to recover in time as Roman threw a radio directly at his head. Port was lying on the floor with the most unusual pained expression ever seen as the radio flickered and turned itself on.**

**[PLAY: Ren and Stimpy - Happy Happy Joy Joy]**

"Oh my god. Proffesor Port's expression...and that song...BWAHAHAHA!" Yang clenched her insides as she tried not to fall from her seat.

Even the ever stoic Schnee sisters couldn't help but laugh at that.

**Roman angrily kicked away the table and picked up Port by his head and lifted him up, and then proceeding to unleash a flurry of punches on his face.**

**Port stopped Torchwick's onslaught with a direct kick to the crotch. A trumpet released an action-themed tune as Roman's eyes slowly went inside his head, while his mouth slowly opened from the pain.**

_'Geez...Cardin's hit on me has absolutely nothing on the Professor's kick.' _Jaune thought as he winced at the sight.

**Port took the oportunity to swing a straight jab at Roman's face, sending the man flying towards the wall. This caused chain of events that resulted with a painting falling on Roman.**

**With the added power of a big wooden shelf.**

_'Talk about overkill...' _Qrow thought as he took a swig from his flask.

**Port looked a bit angry and lifted up the radio as the song ended. He unleashed a raging howl before sending the radio straight towards the door.**

**Meanwhile, Mercury was minding his own business before he noticed the oncoming door at him. He gasped in pain as both the door and the radio on it hit him full force.**

"Wow - I now kinda feel bad about you Merc." Emerald spoke in a 'caring' voice.

**Mercury punched away the door+radio combo in the air and said:**

**"Phew, good thing I'm inde-"**

**Before getting pulverized by the same combo yet again.**

"In fact - you totally deserved that." Emerald finished her sentence, making even Cinder smile at that. Mercury only scoffed at his colleague.

**[PLAY: Rabbids Go Home - Cântare din Banat]**

**The screen started to shake as both Roman and Port were wildly punching each other at ridicilous speeds.**

"Did they... hug each other now?" Ruby curiously asked.

"I absolutely have no idea what you are talking about, Mr Rose." Ozpin said with a smirk, as he took an another sip from his mug.

**Emerald managed to pull out the stuck painting from her forehead with a pained yelp. She heard some comotion outside her room and leaned on the door to hear what is happening.**

**What WAS happening were a series of scenes, where Port was first giving a noggie to Roman, proceeding with Roman drowning Port in a toilet by holding the back of his head with his foot, afterwards Port sitting on Roman's back in a grumpy fashion with Roman cartoonishly flailing his arms around, and finally - Port screaming as Roman flew right into him.**

"This is just completely ridicilous!" Glynda protested.

"And that is precisely why we should enjoy it." Ozpin added with a smile, to which Glynda could only sigh and accept the current state.

**Emerald was now getting a little bit worried as she heard the revving of a chainsaw.**

**Port's moustache 'smiled' evily, as he pointed the Chainsaw towards Roman, who cowered in fear...before noticing the small barrel, where he somehow pulled out Sun Wukong.**

"Eh?" Sun asked, with a raised eyebrow.

**"Have I ever told you the time my buddy Neptune and-"**

**Sun's storytelling was immediatelly cut by Roman, who jabbed him into the gut and injecting multiple adrenaline shots in his ass.**

"EH?!" Sun's eyes widened in shock.

"Dude..."Neptune was now on loss of words as he saw...

**Sun's expression was now that of a Blood Knight on ecstasy as he clashed with Port's chainsaw head on with his bare hands.**

**Roman cheered for his minion while Port was screaming in agony as the faunus was quickly overpowering him with sheer brute strenght...before the chainsaw exploded and engulfed all 3 men in flames.**

**Emerald decided that enough was enough and exited the room...**

**"That better had been an accident! Don't make me get- SWEET HAZEL'S MOTHER-"**

**[PLAY: Rabbids Go Home - Doinã de Ascultare]**

**The scene now consisted of 2 indentically charred corpses, one lying around while the other holding a blonde-haired skull in a noble-like way, and a shocked Emerald.**

**"Agh, what the-oh Hell." The lying corpse(who formerly looked like Port) noticed a very, VERY pissed off Emerald glaring at all of them before adding,**

**"This will get real bad now!"**

**"Tits!" Roman cursed, earning a response from a jumping blonde skull(who was Sun), that said:**

**"Hey, that's not cool. Seriously!"**

**Emerald then body slammed the screen as the whole world went black.**

_'Oh, yes - she does look quite terrifying when in rage! This will do just fine!' _Tyrian thought as he rubbed his hands in joy.

**The scene then opened again with the two corpses cooking in the kitchen - one was cutting pieces of salami while the other was frying an egg.**

**"Roman?"**

**"...Yes?"**

**"I'm hungry."**

**"Um, I don't care."**

**"Excuse me?!"**

**"NOBODY cares."**

**"EXCUSE ME?!"**

**"Have I ever told you the time Neptune and I tried to..."**

**In order to silence the voices from the kitchen, Mercury turned on the radio.**

**[PLAY: Lady and the Tramp - Bella Notte]**

**Mercury gave a very seductive wink at his date, sporting a sly grin that revealed his white shiny teeth.**

**Emerald only clenched her hands in happiness, as a smile stretched on her face.**

**They even ignored the flying objects(and Sun's skull) passing by them. After all - a romantic dinner is a special moment one must cheerish without a care for the outside world.**

"Aww! How cute!" Yang teased with a smile on her lips.

"You just had to introduce us with this 'zombie' scheme of yours only to end up with...that. You couldn't help yourself, could you Bob?" Weiss asked, to which Bob shrugged and smiled.

"Nope."

And thus, Bob vanished once more, without any reason nor explanation.

* * *

**Inspired by: Trailers from Left4Dead & Left4Dead2;"Who's cooking tonight" by Raikujo**


	7. Chapter 7

"What's next? Tell us, pleeeeeaaaaase?" Nora pleaded, even though she didn't need to do that since, well...

Bob was going to tell all of them anyway.

It's kinda like chatting with social media - you can never get a say in anything if your fingers aren't fast enough to type a proper response.

"It's a romantic music video! And I'm sure that you'll all like it!" Bob cheerfully responded, before mentally adding to himself:

'Well, I know Kali will like it for sure.'

How he managed to conceal a wide grin in front of 34 people - nobody will ever now.

**Song: Rude**

**Performed by: It's Always Sunny in Vacuo**

"Yeah...I'm in this one, am I?" Sun asked, unsure whether he's going to get a moment of awesomness...or sheer utter embarassment.

Yang grinned as she ate some popcorn, and said:

"Smart, funny wordplay is always welcome!"

"It's starting!" Weiss quickly noted as everybody sat down and watched.

**The music started immediatelly playing on the opening scene of Sun waking up in a messed up bed.**

_**Saturday morning jumped out of bed and put on my best suit**_  
_**Got in my car and raced like a jet, all the way to you**_

**True to that, Sun has pulled out a suit & tie, and with a little bit of help from his friends of Team SSSN. The whole team proceeded to entera roofless blue car, with Sun driving it and Neptune riding shotgun.**

**Before he stepped the pedal, Sun quickly took a glance at his scroll to check the time. The scroll sported a wallpaper of a cute image of a happy Blake who winked at the camera.**

"I like where this is going!" Yang said with a very, VERY wide grin that was almost threatening to split her face.

Kali had a curious expression on her face. Her husband, well...

Not so much.

Both Blake and Sun blushed a bit at the implications of the scene. Neptune's question later on did not help them at all:

"So, do you really have a photo of Blake like that?"

It did not help since...well, almost everyone now had their eyes fixed on Sun.

"Well, do you?" Ilia added.

"Nope! Definetely no! I mean - it's Blake we're talking about!" Sun said with a nervous smile as he scratched the back of his head.

He did notice the slightly hurt(almost dissapointed) look on Blake's face. Everyone's attention shifted then towards the screen.

'Smooth Sun. Very smooth.' Sun thought, mentally facepalming himself.

**A scene change later showed now the car stopping at-**

"That...is our house." Ghira put it bluntly. He was actually pretty suspicious of this current gimmick.

_**Knocked on your door with heart in my hand**_  
_**To ask you a question**_  
_**'Cause I know that you're an old-fashioned man, yeah, yeah**_

**The door opened to reveal Ghira, who was eyeing Sun, as if to put pressure on the monkey faunus.**

"And that question is...?" Weiss asked, and got her answer right away.

_**Can I have your daughter for the rest of my life?**_  
_**Say yes, say yes 'cause I need to know**_

And the two lov-_ahem_, comrades blushed yet again. Several '_oh's_' could be heard across the room, and it definitely wasn't helping neither Blake nor Sun.

"Can I be the maid of honor Blake?" Yang smirked, her tease obviously having an effect on Blake.

While true - Blake did find Sun a cool guy with...nice looks...and those abs...

_'NO! He is a stalker for crying out loud! A cute, good-looking stalker...STOP IT! Why am I thinking like this?!' _Blake thought.

Unfortunately, she didn't count on Bob, who has the power to read other people's minds.

What Bob was doing now was a complete breach and utter violation of someone's privacy. The thing is - he didn't care.

If his wide grin was something to be accounted for.

Sun on the other hand was on the verge of sweating from how red he was currently.

"Breathe in, breathe out." Neptune kept repeating the same mantra over and over again to his team leader. It did not bear fruit as Yang decided to ask:

"So, what's the date?"

Now, growing up and living in Vacuo has taught Sun several tricks that could be used in various situations and for just one purpose - to decieve and get out of a sticky situation.

With a loud thud, Sun Wukong _'lost' _conciousness.

Ghira could only sigh at the scene, while Kali was already counting how many grandchildren she will have.

And as for you readers, who wonder - how the heck does this all happen in a span of 1.5 seconds between the verses of the song? It's simple, really.

Magic.

_**You say I'll never get your blessing 'til the day I die**_  
_**Tough luck, my friend, but the answer is no!**_

**Ghira responded(in Sun's voice, strangely enough) before slamming the door in front of the monkey faunus.**

"Ghira!" Kali pouted, while the Belladona male was thinking about wether he would really simply say no to the boy Blake brought.

Mind you, he still didn't like him not one bit, but he did appreciate the boy's efforts and courtesing both him and his wife.

Sun himself didn't expect nothing less of an answer, since he knew that he was on thin ice with Blake's dad from the very moment they met. Even still, he considered him pretty cool - probably's the reason why Blake was so cool.

Speaking of Blake, she wasn't surprised to see her 'dad's' answer to Sun's...proposal. For some reason, however, she couldn't feel but a bit disappointed.

**The scene switched to a makeshift garage stage where Team SSSN was playing their instruments, while Sun was singing.**

_**Why you gotta be so rude?**_  
_**Don't you know I'm human too?**_  
_**Why you gotta be so rude?**_  
_**I said, I'm gonna marry her anyway**_

**With the instrumental starting, the scene then changed to Neptune and the rest of Sun's team patting him on the back.**

_**Marry that girl**_  
_**Marry her anyway**_  
_**Marry that girl**_  
_**Yeah, no matter what you say**_

_**Marry that girl**_  
_**And we'll be a family**_  
_**Why you gotta be so **_  
_**Rude?**_

"C'mon, give the big guy a break! He's just wants the best for his daughter!" Tai expressed himself, to which Qrow stepped in by saying:

"I don't remember you asking neither Raven's nor Summer's parents for their blessing, Tai."

"Those were completely different situations!" Tai tried to explain himself...poorly.

While Ghira appreaciated a fellow father standing up for him - after all, he loved his daughter very much and he wasn't going to just give her to the first guy she met.

His thoughts were interrupted by Adam, who bluntly said:

"Human?"

"It's a metaphor. Drop it." Bob quickly responded.

**The scene then showed a grainy image of Sun carrying Blake by letting her sit on his shoulders while they were on a beach.**

**Immediatelly after that it showed Sun being catapulted by a Sea Dragon, but ended up safe in Blake's hands, who caught him bridal style.**

"Aww, you two are so CUTE!" Nora yellped.

_'Well, the last one actually DID happen.' _Bob thought with a sly hidden grin on his face.

Blake burried herself in her palms to cover her red-colored face, while Sun tried to literally smile away the blush from his cheeks while scratching the back of his head.

Safe to say - they weren't as successful as they thought they would be.

**Blake was currently having dinner, or more precisely - tea with both Ghira and Khali. She herself wasn't paying much attention to her parents' talk, since she was typing something on her scroll.**

**The scene continuosly shifted between the home dinner and Team SSSN's garage play.**

_**I hate to do this, you leave no choice, can't live without her**_  
_**Love me or hate me, we will be boys, standin' at that altar**_

_**Or we will run away to another galaxy, you know**_  
_**You know she's in love with me, she will go anywhere I go!**_

"I believe that it's quite the opposite situation here." Weiss commented.

"Seriously tho, gotta give credit where credit is due - you aren't a quitter Sunny!" Yang cheered.

"It's called being a stalk-"

Weiss was half interrupted by Bob, who said:

"It's called being determined, _Elsa_."

"..."

"Who's Elsa?"

**Although the band stopped because Sun got a message on his scroll, the music went on playing.**

**Evening fell, and team SSSN went to the Belladona manor once again. Sun exited the car and approached the main door.**

**Meanwhile, Blake excused herself from the table as Ghira went to see who was on his porch.**

**It was, obviously, Sun.**

_**Can I have your daughter for the rest of my life?**_  
_**Say yes, say yes 'cause I need to know**_  
_**You say I'll never get your blessing 'til the day I die**_  
_**Tough luck, my friend, 'cause the answer's still 'No'**_

**Ghira slammed his door at Sun, albeit this time with more force so it knocked back the monkey faunus a bit.**

_**Why you gotta be so rude?**_  
_**Don't you know I'm human too?**_  
_**Why you gotta be so rude?**_  
_**I said, I'm gonna marry her anyway**_

**After properly locking his door, Ghira was met by Kali who gave him a note from Blake, saying that she genuenly wants to be with Sun.**

**Ghira could only sigh.**

**The scene then shifted again to the improvised garage stadium with Team SSSN playing their instruments.**

_**Marry that girl**_  
_**Marry her anyway**_  
_**Marry that girl**_  
_**No matter what you say**_

_**Marry that girl**_  
_**And we'll be a family**_  
_**Why you gotta be so**_  
_**Rude?**_

"How are they at Blake's place AND in the garage at the same time?! It doesn't make any sense!" Ruby exclaimed.

"Ruby, have you ever actually watched a music video? I mean, I know you love listening to music, so..." Weiss paused, giving Ruby the time for her to respond:

"I...never bothered with those things. I just kinda like listening only - no need to watch some random stuff the musicians film. Only the music matters to me."

**Blake and Sun finally met in the open garden of the manor, where they exchanged hugs. She however, noticed that something was slipped into her hand.**

**And before she could see what it is, Sun knelt and said the four magic words...**

**That were muted for the sake of the song.**

**Nevertheless, Blake was estatic when she saw the simple golden ring and gave him a short, but sweet kiss on the lips.**

Somehow, Blake knew that her mother was enjoying this. What was shocking to her was the fact that she herself was...enjoying this as well.

Even though her parents had a different approach on her potential romantic partners, they shared the same goal - to make sure that Blake gets the right man.

Or a girl. They don't judge.

Sun tried to supress his smile, seeing that, while it may not be done in the way he would prefer, he liked the idea of being with Blake. He did care about her - if following her to an another continent wasn't enough proof.

Of course, the idea of marriage seemed a bit too early for his, and definetely Blake's taste - but it's a nice option to consider.

Illia wasn't faring exactly well - she also did care about Blake, but also felt like she had little to no chance with her.

She was jelaous - first of Adam, then of the monkey boy that follows her around constantly. But in the end - she decided to drop the whole thing, thinking that if it makes Blake happy, then she is happy as well.

On the other hand, Adam's eyelids were twitching a bit in irritation, and was even visible through his eyemask.

Nobody of course cared for this, simply because that nobody gives a fuck about Adam.

**The camera's focus was on Neptune now, who was rocking it with the solo of the song.**

"Seriously though, can you actually play like that?" Jaune asked. Sun jumped in and responded with:

"Eh, he's not half as bad. In fact - guitar playing is one of the things Neptune doesn't suck at!" Sun looked quite proud of what he said now. The pride was ,of course, meant for Neptune - but it wasn't the kind of pride the blue-haired boy wanted.

If the cartoonish sweatdrop on his forehead was anything to go by.

**Immediately after the solo was finished, both Sun and Blake along with the rest of Team SSSN were standing on the porch of the house.**

**All of them were facing Ghira and Kali, who wrapped her arms around her husband.**

**Suddenly the scene shifted again on the garage performance.**

_**Can I have your daughter for the rest of my life?**_  
_**Say yes, say yes 'cause I need to know**_  
_**You say I'll never get your blessing 'til the day I die**_  
_**Tough luck, my friend, 'cause the answer's still 'No'**_

_**Why you gotta be so rude?**_  
_**Don't you know I'm human too?**_  
_**Why you gotta be so rude?**_  
_**I said, I'm gonna marry her anyway**_

**The camera then switched back to the Belladona manor where, after long thinking, Ghira simply nodded at them.**

_**Marry that girl**_  
_**Marry her anyway**_  
_**Marry that girl**_  
_**No matter what you say**_

**As the kids where leaving, Sun turned around towards Ghira who was giving him the 'I'm watching you' gesture.**

**Sun simply smiled confidentaly, as if he was saying that there is nothing for the father of his soon-to-be-wife to be worried about.**

_**Why you gotta be so rude?**_

**Ghira just smiled in response. In the end, he made the right choice.**

"..."

"Blake."

"Yes dad?"

"Kali and I have been talking...and we have decided that should you decide to marry anyone - you will have our blessing, no matter who you decide to share your life with." Ghira finished. A small red line formed over Blake's face, while Sun actually felt a little bit relieved.

The monkey faunus did however flinch when he saw Ghira's gaze on him, but the older man slightly nodded in approval. Sun Wukong was feeling like somebody removed a mountain from his chest.

"Blaaaake! Ren is making the wedding cake, right?" Nora jumped at her, eagerly awaiting her response, to which the girl responded:

"If he wants to, then yes."

Nora made a small cheery yelp at that.

It seemed like a happy atmosphere was now surrounding the whole room.

Well, at least the White seats and the Huntsmen/Huntresses-in-training, but you get my point.

_'Everything is slowly being set into its respectful places. All according to my, heh, keikaku...huehuehehehe...hehehAHAHAH...AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!'_

"Mr. Bob, are you alright?" Ozping asked with slight concern in his voice.

"Oh yes, yes. Don't mind me!" Bob responded with his teeth-baring grin.

* * *

**Inspired by: "Rude" by MAGIC!**


	8. Chapter 8

A joyful, relaxed atmosphere was rulling in the Dimensional Cinema.

Now, Bob always liked when he was in a casual, stressless environment, but he thought that this...was a bit too relaxed for his taste.

Eat too much cake, and you will get sick. Or so the saying goes.

So he decided to stir things up a bit. Albeit not instantly, but with a slow build-up.

"Movie clip time!" Bob yelled out loud, and everyone's attention now shifted to the big screen behind him.

Bob suddenly made a stop handsign, and curiously asked the whole audience:

"Before we get started, you do know what a cowboy is, right?"

"Yeah! Aren't they supposed to be like heroes who ride on horses, shoot guns and wear fancy hats?" Ruby answered, albeit with a question herself.

"Pretty sure that most of them are actually outlaws, sis. Is that related to this or...?"

"Nah, nah, Just curious." Bob quickly answered as the screen flared to life.

The Hateful Eight

"Alright, now THAT is a good name for a movie." Yang emphasized it with a pointing finger.

**The scene was greeted with an interior view of a large wooden cabin in the middle of the snowy weather, if the howling sounds of wind and the dark whiteness that emanated from the windows were any indications.**

**Adam Taurus, all dressed in black clothes with a black winter cloak and his signature mask, was taking a few sips of some stew from a cauldron and put it in two small bowls.**

**He seemed a bit older, as his blood-red hair lost it's gleam, and a few gray strands could be noticed on his scalp.**

**The bull faunus took the two bowls and went towards a certain direction. He passed by an already occupied table and went straight towards the man who was sitting in an armchair. A man that goes by the name of Jaques Schnee.**

"Oh my. This...may not end well." Weiss worryingly noted, to which Winter nodded in agreement.

Adam grunted a bit, trying to control himself of not making an completely unnecessary scene based on nothing but unchecked emotions.

**Taurus, however, only gave the filled bowl to the old man, without an obvious hint of malice. This wasn't enough for someone however, as Cardin Winchester stood up from the table and said:**

**"Goddamit Taurus, you leave that old man alone!"**

**"Stand down you sonofa bitch. I shared a battlefield with this man! Are you really going to deny me that?" Adam turned from Cardin and benevolently looked at Jaques.**

**The old man looked straight at the faunus and said:**

**"I suppose you were there."**

"War buddies?" Nora asked innocently, causing Adam to mockingly laugh at the statement, before saying:

"I'd rather raise my own blade at myself than associating myself with..._that_."

That earned some glares from the White seats, mainly from the Schnees. Adam simply did not care at all.

**А****dam extended his hand towards the armchair that was opposite of Jaques, and asked:**

**"May I join you?"**

**"Yes you may." Jaques answered as Adam sat down and started eating his stew.**

"Well, this is surprisingly civil." Ghira curiously noted.

**Both men were sitting across each other, eating their own respectable meals with big wooden spoons.**

**In the distance, Hazel took of his warm leather gloves and opened a rusty old piano and started playing a simple tune on it, as if he was trying to remember the whole song.**

**He lost focus a bit and played the wrong key, making the tune dissonant.**

**"Dammit." Hazel quietly whispered to himself. He readjusted himself on the chair, and started playing again, albeit a bit faster and more accurately.**

**The scene then shifted at the two old men sitting across each other on their armchairs. The tune in the background became a bit more relaxed, and more musically pleasing.**

**"How's life been since the war?" Adam asked. Jaques looked at his extended legs and said:**

**"Got both of my legs, got both of my arms. Can't complain."**

**"Got a woman?"**

**"Fever took her beggining this winter."**

**"What was her name?"**

**"Willow."**

Weiss sighed. As much as she despised her father, she loved her mother in equal manner. Albeit this wasn't real and did not apply to her real mother, she couldn't help but feel a bit saddened at the mention of her death.

**"Atlesian girl?"**

**"Yes. Mantle boy, Atlesian girl." Jaques confirmed, to which Adam made a slight chuckle.**

**"I used to raise Valean horses. Her paw' owned the breedership I purchased most of my ponnies from."**

**The scene shifted to Hazel, who made a mistake by playing the wrong key again.**

**"Goddamit." Hazel whispered and paused with his playing a bit.**

**"I made a good deal on her. Used that stake I got from him. Purchased a few peach orchards. Set myself up pretty good. Did a helluva' lot better than my no good brothers, that's for damn sure. Willow took the bottle after our boy and two girls. But I never minded that. She was a nice woman, so I never minded anything she did." Jaques said as he finished his stew.**

Qrow could almost feel the contempt in Winter's eyes as she watched the scene unfold. But he knew that the Specialist was never on good terms with her father - hell, he wouldn't be surprised if Jaques actually disowned her with her enrollement in the military.

Speaking of Jaques, Qrow found it funny how both the Remnant one and the on-screen one had a similar way of getting rich, despite their completely different, if not opposite backgrounds, as one was a former merchant, while the other was a soldier who has seen his share of battles.

**"Yeah, your son came a coupla' years ago. He spoke highly of his mama too."**

**Jaques stiffened at that. He gazed at the faunus and asked:**

**"You knew my boy?"**

**"Did I knew'em?" Adam chuckled at that, as he grinned at Jaques and added,"Yeah, I knew'em."**

**"You did not know my boy." Jaques snorted.**

**Adam put the finished bowl aside, stood up and said:**

**"Suit yourself."**

**Jaques grabbed Adam's wrist just as he was about to leave, and hopefully asked him:**

**"Didja know my son?"**

**"I know the day he died."**

**To that, Hazel stopped playing since he made yet another mistake.**

**"Do you?" Adam responded calmly.**

**"No." Jaques responded.**

**"Wanna know what day that was?" Adam asked, to which Jaques said:**

**"Yes."**

**Adam then leaned closer towards the old man and calmly said:**

**"The day he met me."**

**And like that, Jaques immediatelly broke his grip on Adam's wrist.**

"So he...killed him?" Ruby sheepishly asked as she looked towards both her dad and Qrow.

"I guess he did." Taiyang responded.

"But then, why was he so friendly with him?" Oscar added, to which Roman clicked his tongue and said:

"Oh, for crying out loud - the guy has a personal grudge against the old man. In this case, he just wants to prolong it. Probably because he finds..."

"Joy in it." Raven finished the criminal's words.

**Hazel started to play the piano again. This time however, the music was a lot more complex and a lot more accurate, with the added musicality to it.**

**Adam swiftly pulled a revolver from the holster, looked Jaques Schnee straight in the eye, and left the gun at the old man's reach.**

"Such deviousness." Roman thought outloud with a short laugh.

"Why is that, uh, devious?" Jaune asked.

"He's trying to goad Jaques into picking up that pistol, which means that he can legally kill him in self-defense." Qrow explained thoroughly.

"Can he really do that?!" Ruby questioned, as if she just had an unpleasant surprise.

"And get away with it? Yes. Yes he can." Qrow finished.

**Jaques briefly looked at the loaded revolver that was left right next to him, and then looked at Adam, who was walking across the room.**

**"He came up to do a little foncer head-hunting. By then the reward was, huh, five thousand and bragging rights. But back then to battle hard rebs, five thousand to cut off a foncer's head? That's good money."**

Nora was a bit confused with the whole dialogue, so she asked:

"Foncer? What is that?"

"It is an old racial slur for the faunus people. I believed that it was the word itself dissapeared." Oobleck explained.

"But why is he using it? Doesn't he degrade himself like that?" Nora asked again, as she munched the rest of the popcorn.

Ghira stepped up and said:

"Back in my younger years, that word was widely used by faunus, and if said by one - it is completely normal. But for reasons unknown, it becomes an insulting word whenever a human uses it."

"A word that is restricted by race? That sounds dumb." Yang noted as she crossed her arms.

**"So them Johhny's climbed this mountain, looking for fortune. But there was no fortune to be found. All they found... was me. All of them fellas sang a different tune when they found themselves at the mercy of a foncer's gun. 'Let's just forget it. I go my way and you go yours.' That's your boy Whitley talking."**

**Jaques screamed at Adam across the room.**

**"You're a goddamn LIE!"**

**The scene shifted to Whitley, who wore practical winter clothing, with both of his arms raised in the air. His lips moved, but Adam's voice was doing the talking.**

**"'If you just let me go home to my family, I swear I'll never set foot in Solitas again.' That's what they all say."**

**Hazel's piano performance sounded as if a master was playing it.**

**"Begging for his life, your boy told me his whole life story. And you was in that story, General. And when I knew I had the boy of the blooded Faunus Killer of Atlas...heh, I knew I was gonna' have some fun."**

**"YOU SHUT YOUR LYING FONCER LIPS UP!"**

**Cardin roared at the table as he stood up and pointed at Adam.**

**"General Schnee, don't listen to him. He don't know your boy! He just heard tell why you're here is all!"**

"I'm _glad_ to see that a certain someone still hasn't changed a bit." Blake said dryly.

As Adam looked at the screen, he just wondered - what was the other him's definition of fun with a human? More even a Schnee?

**Adam ignored Cardin's remark as continued.**

**"It was cold the day I killed your boy. And I don't mean snowy mountain in Solitas cold...It was colder than that."**

**The scene shifted to a still landscape of a large snowy hill. Two figures could be seen approaching from behind the snowy hill.**

**"And on that cold day, with your boy at the bussiness end of my gun barrel... I made him strip. Right down to his bare ass. And then I told him to start walking."**

**The first figure was enveloped in black winter clothing and was holding a rifle towards the figure in front of him, that was a fully naked Whitley.**

_'Interesting...perhaps...' _Adam thought as he put his hand on his chin.

Blake had the same shocked expression her other friends had. But a quick glance at Adam made her realize something.

**Adam and Whitley walked through various terrains, all of them covered in knee deep snow. Whitley was looking weaker and weaker as he was slowly freezing to death.**

**"I walked his naked ass for two hours before the cold collapsed him."**

**And true to Adam's words, the naked Whitley simply fell flat on the snow.**

**The scene shifted to a close-up of Jaques Schnee, who sported a shocked expression.**

**"You never even knew my boy?" Jaques asked, to which Cardin stepped up by saying:**

**"No he didn't! He's just a sneaky foncer trying to getcha to go for that gun!"**

**Jaques briefly glanced at Cardin before looking towards Adam again as the faunus continued his story. His concentration was unnaffected by Winchester's voice.**

**"Then he started begging again. But this time he wasn't begging to go home - he knew that he'd never see his home again. Wasn't begging for his life neither, cuz he knew that was long gone. All he wanted...was a blanket. **  
**Now, don't judge the boy too harshly general. You ain't never been as cold as your boy was that day. You'd be surprised what a man that cold would do for a blanket!**  
**Wanna know what your boy did?"**

"Renny...I-I don't like this..." Nora whispered as she grabbed Ren's arm. Her friend envelloped her in a protective hug, readying both of them for what was to come.

**The eyes of Jaques Schnee bulged out as he awaited the words of Adam Taurus.**

**"I took my big, oxen pecker outta my pants. And I made him crawl on all fours over to it."**

**The scene shifted to a very weak, very desperate Whitley crawling on his arms and legs as he approached Adam.**

**"Then I grabbed a hand full of that silver white hair on the back of his head..."**

**Truly to that, Adam grabbed Whitley's head and put it in his crotch.**

**"And I stuck my big oxen johnson right down his goddamn throat. And it was fulla blood, so it was warm. Heheh, you betcha your sweet ass it was warm. And Whitley Schnee SUCKED on that one bull's dingus for as long as he could!"**

**The Adam in the past started laughing like a maniac as he thrusted Whitley's head on his cock. Jaques grabbed the wooden armrest of the chair and held it tightly as he envisioned all that Adam was doing.**

**It was worse than he could possibly imagine.**

**As Whitley sucked on Adam's cock on the snowy white plains, Adam just lifted his hat and he let out a scream of joy.**

Winter only saw red.

If not for Qrow, who was holding her shoulders, she would've possibly killed the leader of the White Fang with her bare hands.

"YOU CUR! YOU DON'T DESERVE TO BREATHE ANOTHER SECOND! I WILL KILL YOU! YOU HEAR ME! I WILL END YOUR LIFE, YOU BEAST!"

James Ironwood knew that his Specialist and her little brother were never close. Perhaps quite the opposite. But he was still her sibling, and Gods knew that he himself would explode like his Specialist if something similar happened to one of his soldiers.

Weiss was absolutely horrified of the scene, if she wasn't close to vomiting a bit. She never liked Whitley, and probably never will if he keeps up with that personality of his. But even he doesn't deserve the monstrous treatment that was shown to her.

On the mentioning of the word '_dingus' _,Nora would've probably laughed her ass off. But the scenes that came after were not very pleasant for both her and Ren.

"I-I think I'm going to be sick..." Jaune barely said as he was trying to contain the bile that came up to his mouth. Pyrrha immediatelly straightened up Jaune's twisted form, and with her help, supressed the urge to spill his guts.

"T-thanks Pyr." Jaune weakly murmured.

Yang almost reacted like Winter. Surprisingly, she managed to control herself a bit. Still, she made a mental note to personally crush his '_family jewels' _when she gets the chance. She almost forgot the fact that Ruby also watched this, so she quickly turned around to her sister and saw...well...

Bob was almost reconsidering his choice of playing this particular clip as he saw Ruby in tears. Oscar wasn't fanning any better, as he locked a bit more sick than sad. Both Tai and Yang immediatelly rushed to comfort Ruby.

Key word being _almost_.

_'The weak die and the strong survive...' _Raven thought as she watched the projection.

Qrow would too if he wasn't busy restraining a particular angry Ice Queen.

"LET ME GO QROW! I WILL CRUSH HIS SKULL UNDER MY FOOT!"

"Winter, calm down!" Qrow said. Winter eased a bit, and knew that the drunk was actually being serious for once - the giveaway being that he called her by her name.

"I know what you're thinking, and I know how you feel. But you have to remember that THAT isn't real. And it'll never be real."

Winter eased up a bit, but if glares could kill - she'd be killing Adam a thousand times over.

Blake now knew that even rape isn't beneath Adam - as long as he satisfies his spite and anger towards everything and everyone who defy him.

Even some of the Black seat members looked at Adam in disguist.

Roman, on the other hand, didn't had any particular problems with the scene. Being a kingpin in the criminal underworld gave him a fair share of gruesome things he witnessed, and sometimes - commited.

'Pretty sure Neo has done something similar...' Roman thought as he looked at his little helper.

She looked curiously at the unfolding scene. One might say that she was on a verge of smiling, as it were some sort of a comedy.

Adam just smirked at this.

After all, he liked to have all options presented to him.

**The scene then shifted to a view of Adam's face, who sported an alligator-like grin.**

**"Startin' to see pictures, ain't ya? Your boy, faunus dude, dingus in his mouth. Him shaking, him crying, me laughing AHAHAHAH! And him NOT understanding...But you understand, doncha Jacky?"**

**Adam started walking around the General and sat down on a large wooden chair, not too far from the father of the man whom he killed.**

**"I never did give your boy that blanket. Even after all he did, and he did EVERYTHING I asked. No blanket.**  
**That blanket was a heart-breaking lie. Sorta like when the Union issued the law that regulates the rights of faunus prisoners of war... that you chose NOT to enforce. Cuz it wasn't cheap enough, eh?"**

Winter was now speechless. As a student of the Atlas Military Academy, she spent a great deal of studying various subjects, including the rights of POW's. She simply let out an angry grunt as she thought:

_'Of course that father would never do something that could temporarily damage his pocket. A fool he is.'_

It still did not justify the atrocities that Adam has commited on Whitley - even if her foolish little brother actually came up to the mountain to kill a faunus for a reward.

**"So whatcu gonna do, old man? You're gonna spend the next 2-3 days ignoring the foncer who killed your boy? Ignoring how I made him suffer? Ignoring how I made him", Adam licked his lips in a glutonous manner,"lick all over my johnson?"**

**Adam gave out a short laugh before speaking again:**

**"The dumbest thing your boy ever did was letting ME know he was YOUR boy."**

**And that was the last straw for Jaques. He immediatelly grabbed the revolver on the stool, but Adam was quicker.**

**The faunus shot the old General right in the heart before he could even aim at the murderer of his son.**

**As Jaques fell over the table, Adam flipped the revolver before putting it down in it's holster.**

**Hazel looked at the unfolded scene in a passive manner before closing down the piano keys.**

"..."

"To be honest, it was stupid of the little Schnee to give away his heritage to him of all people." Roman made a point.

And it was a pretty good one.

It took all the self control Winter had to calm herself from lunging at the criminal.

Bob could only look at Ruby.

Weiss, for all her pride, really had to admit that both the Adam on the screen, and Torchwick were right - Whitley panicked, and made a stupid decision that cost him his life.

A fate that could've been quite easily avoided.

* * *

**Inspired by: "The Hateful Eight" by Quentin Tarantino**


	9. Chapter 9

The cheery, relaxed atmosphere that dominated the beggining the previous chapter was now replaced with dead, uncomfortable silence.

Needless to say, it was awkward.

Emotions throughout the audience have calmed down, which meant that Bob could continue on with his...thing.

"I'm, well, not good with promises, since I never liked that concept, but...I won't be showing something like that ever again."

Ruby looked up to Bob with her eyes that were dried out of tears, as if she was expecting something of him.

"You have my word." Bob added. Some of the members sighed, while some others were relieved.

"But was it really necessary to show that, in the first place?"

The question came from the person who was sitting next to Ruby, Oscar. In Bob's stead, Qrow turned towards the youngsters and spoke:

"You'd be surprised at how often that kind of stuff happens all around Remnant. I'd say that it's better to face this now than later - at least you'd now know how to approach this."

Bob simply nodded at Qrow in approval.

Their host wasn't suprised at how quickly they all recovered - they were Huntsmen and Huntresses(well most of them) after all. It is expected of them to have the guts to bear such attrocities - rarely did Qrow knew of a Huntsman who peacefully died of old age in their sleep.

"Well, I'm glad we got that out of the way. Now - how about a proper movie, eh? It's a crime thriller - I betcha ya'll will like it quite much."

True to his words, some of the faces did lit up in interest.

Well, mostly of the older members of the audience, to be honest.

"Don't assume such things, Mr. Bob - it is...unwise to make predictions that may prove incorrect." Glynda shot a glare at their host, to which he responded with a simple shrug.

"Ah, the faithless...Welp, here we go!" And with the snap of the fingers, the previously enlightened room darkened and the screen turned on. Bob was staying in the shadows, away from view of everyone else.

**WARFRAME**

"Ohhh, robots! I LOVE ROBOTS!" Nora joyfully exclaimed.

"Wait, what makes you think there will be robots? For all we know, it could be super space ninjas!" spoke Yang.

"Oh, you're so funny Yang! Of course there will be robots - you have _"war" _which means, well - war, duh. And _"frame", _as in a metalic frame! So, there will be robots!"

The hammer-wielder's complex, yet sensible explanation baffled the students around her.

Bob couldn't help but snicker at the sight.

Almost nobody noticed Ren's smug expression on his face.

"While Miss Valkyrie could have put it a little better, she does have a reasonable explanation." Ozpin added as he took a sip of his coffee.

"..."

"I still call space ninjas here."

**A couple lines of text appeared on the black background:**

**They were called Tenno. Warriors of blade and gun: masters of the Warframe armor. Those that survived the old war were left drifting among the ruins. Now they are needed once more.**

**An ancient threat re-emerges from the ruins of the Old War, and thus the Tenno are now faced with both the dangers of the outside...and perilous secrets from the inside.**

Strangely enough, nobody said a word as the clip continued on - they were either too focused on watching it, or busy with eating their snacks.

**The text dissapeared into a blur and was replaced by a shot of a figure that was currently moving.**

**The person had a shadowy black color that was spread through his whole body, with a tinge of red outlines here and there. With a closer look on it's face, it was shown that he/she had no mouth, only a small shiny dot in the centre of it's head that shone the "run-as-fast-as-you-can" shade of red.**

"Can't believe that there exists a person who's edgier than Blake." Yang said as she stuffed a handful of popcorn in her mouth. The mentioned faunus only shoot an unamused look at the blonde.

**A steady drum beat accompanied the scene as the figure went up the stairs and arrived on the top of a platform.**

**It was not alone, as a circle of floating slim robot-like with most of it's blade sunk into the floor.**

**The entire room had a few fairly large glass windows, from which came the light-bending reflection of water. With this, it is clear that the room is located in some deep underwater location.**

**And then suddenly, a booming, sinister-like voice echoed throughout the room, with it's source easily traceable to the greatsword, or more precisely - a eerie green glowing core just above its hilt.**

**"Who destroyed the Orokin? Your way of life?"**

**The figure looked around, gazing into each and every angle possible, as if he's scanning the room.**

**"Who do you hunt Shadow, to cleanse your despair in their blood?"**

**To that, the 'Shadow' raised his arm, and showed a decapitated horned head of a masked person. He was holding it by one of it's horns, and showed it as if it was a trophy of a hunt.**

**"TENNO." the figure said as he non-chalantly dropped the head, which rolled on the side of the sword.**

**"Sever their heads yet they rise again. Someone has hidden the Tenno essence, their truth, from you." The voice spoke again, to which the Shadow responded with a simple:**

**"LOTUS."**

**To that, the sword unsheated itself from the floor both the Shadow and the sword started levitating, albeit to Shadow's slight surprise.**

**With a flash of blue-tinted light, the Shadow donned red-colored, skeleton like armor. The sword positioned itself to be wielded properly by it's new hand.**

**"I know where she hides the Tenno heart. A womb in the sky, forbidden to my kind, but where you will take me."**

**Shadow grabbed his new sword and gazed onto the glowing core of the weapon, not noticing that the circle of figures around him dissipated in blue sparks.**

**"WHO?"**

**"I am Ozpin, Sentient destroyer of worlds."**

**The Shadow responded with only averting the gaze from the weapon, while looking at the window that kept the pressure of deep water at bay.**

**"By your hand, expose their heart."**

**The scene was getting dim, the brightness getting lower and lower with each passing second.**

**"By my edge..."**

**The scene then faded into the nothingness of the dark.**

**"Cleave it beating from it's nest."**

**THE SECOND DREAM**

Bob could notice the looks of curiosity for the clip as the title faded from the screen. Hell, even Salem is now showing a LOT more interest than before.

"Villan Ozpin, huh. Lemme guess - Salem is a good guy here?" Qrow spurted out as he took a swig from his bottle.

"Headmaster sure does sound scary like that, heheh..." Ruby nervously chuckled.

In order to defuse a situation before it was even fused, Ozpin spoke up:

"No need to worry Ms Rose, I do not plan on becoming a 'destroyer of worlds' - not now, not ever." The Headmaster then drank a sip from his coffee cup.

"Well, you never know!"

The statement came, obviously, from Roman. Bob couldn't help but laugh a bit.

**The screen flared to life as it was now showing an interior of a small space ship. The front window was large, almost to the point of covering half of the ship's ceiling.**

**The Excalibur Warframe stood up from his kneeling position and opened his communicator in the palm of his hand.**

**It was a direct message from the Lotus.**

**A holo-screen came out of the center of his palm, showing an image of a masked woman. She wore a purple mask that was reminiscent of the shape of a...well, a lotus. The mouth area was exposed, and a single blue-tinted dot seemingly served as an eye of the mask.**

"Called it!" Qrow exclaimed.

A loud shush came from Glynda, and all possible chatter stopped right there.

**"The Sentient Ozpin has grown strong again, and his thoughts have invaded my own. **  
**Worse still, he has enlisted the Stalker to find the Reservoir, a weak point to all Tenno, a place I hid long ago.**  
**I fear the Stalker is on the cusp of finding this place. Do not let this happen."**

**The Excalibur simply nodded and went towards the navigation console. He selected the planet called Uranus. His mission - to infiltrate the Grineer archives.**

...

"There is actually a planet called... Uran-?"

"We're all adults here, Taiyang. No need to point out the obvious." Oobleck firmly spoke.

Behind them however, several laughs could be heard. Indeed, one must question the person who thought it was a great idea to give such a name.

"What about the children, Oobleck?" Bob 'questioned'. Ruby pouted at that, while Yang decided to stand up and say:

"Hey, we're all adults here!"

"Oscar kinda isn't..." Jaune meekly noted.

"He is too! I mean, the Headmaster WAS inside of him, so that technically makes him an adult, duh!"

What Nora didn't expect as a result of her saying that is that EVERYONE turned towards her, with wide eyes.

"Dude..." Sun gasped.

All the while Bob was rolling on the floor and was having a big laughter fit.

"What? What did I say- oh."

The realization struck her hard. So hard, in fact, that her face remained frozen in a passive shocked state.

Kinda like a blue screen of death.

Bob quickly recovered from his fit and broke the rather uncomfortable silence.

"Alright, alright, let's move on now, shall we?"

**The scene changed from the showcase of the Liset space ship getting closer at a rapid rate towards the planet to the Tenno getting down from a ventilation shaft and into an underwater cave that showed signs of machinery and metal that graced the whole room.**

**The Excalibur quickly readied his Braton in his hands as the Lotus conveyed yet an another message:**

**"The Fang's excavations have disturbed Ozpin's tomb. They've awakened something evil, bent on Tenno destruction. Infiltrate the Fang's systems to find out what they know. It may lead us to the Stalker."**

**The Lotus cut off. Excalibur could do nothing else but listen to her guidance.**

**Several seconds later, the Excalibur ran into a patrol of Fang footsoldiers walking towards him.**

**"WARFRAM SPOTTER!"**

**"TENNO SKOOM!"**

Safe to say, the prospect of the White Fang getting their hands on high grade military hardware obviously didn't set quite well for James.

However, even Adam wasn't sure about that idea himself, for all his close-mindedness. The faunus on the screen looked...well, wrong would be a mild term to describe them.

Some of the soldiers on the screen could easily tople Hazel in both height and sheer size. Their legs were too thin to be considered natural, and concluded that those were most likely cybernetics of some sort.

The ones wielding guns had enormous shoulder pads that even covered the back of their heads, and the standard White Fang masks covered all of the face, with the eyeslits betraying a yellow glow.

The faunus characteristics, be horns or ears, were either severely damaged or close to actually rotting off.

"What are they saying?" Ruby asked.

"Dunno. Pretty sure the latter is supposed to be 'Tenno scum', at least that's what I think it is. The first one could be, uh - 'Warframe spotted' ?"

**The Fang corps immediatelly opened fire on the Warframe, but the effort proved to be futile. The Excalibur simply rushed towards them, his shield taking some of the bullets while dodging the rest with a bullet-dive, and sliced them all in half in one sweep slide attack of his Orthos.**

"Nice." Mercury whistled, ignoring Adam's stare on him.

"Well...at least he was quick and efficient." Oobleck spoke next.

All the while Yang pointed out to Nora and said:

"I did say they were super space ninjas! Take that!" Yang said with a stiffled laugh that came after it.

Nora acknowledged her defeat by nodding to the side, and said:

"Well, ninjas are cool too!"

**30 Fang Troopers, 6 Drahks and 2 Bombarders later, the Excalibur arrived at the locked door. As he approached the door console, the Lotus popped on the right side of the screen and said:**

**"You're nearing the console, trigger the alarms now and they will start destroying the data."**

"They'll destroy their own stuff just like that?" Jaune asked, as he was confused a bit.

"It is an unorthodox tactic that is employed as a last resort - if a potential enemy has breached every possible defense, it is better to destroy it than to fall in the wrong hands. There is usually a back-up device for the most important data hidden on a different location." Ironwood explained thoroughly, to which sparked some questions with the blonde brawler.

"But then why don't you-oh..."

"It's too expensive kiddo, even for a government body that is the military. Money can be a bitch sometimes." Qrow responded to Yang's to-be question.

"Language!" Ruby yelped, to which everyone proceeded on watching the show.

**After a fast hack, the Excalibur entered the enormous room behind the previously locked doors.**

**The far front of the room had a glass window that kept the water at bay, while on the right were diagonally placed giant cables that emanated a yellow glow through their entire body.**

**Excalibur sneaked past the Fang grunt that was facing the far front and went up the cables, where there was an open entrance to a ventilation shaft that was probably leading towards the main console.**

**The ventilation shaft, however, was not without it's perils, as it had a couple of alarm scanners on both the right and the left side of the walls that went up and down in a regular pace.**

**The Warframe had no trouble with those whatsoever, as he merely slided beneath the scanners and proceeded to jump down the shaft hole that eventually lead him to the main console.**

"Dunno why, but I got a feeling that this would be fantastic as a video game." Neptune casually commented.

Bob managed to somewhat supress his chuckle.

**He used a cipher to quickly end the hacking and got the data inside.**

**"The Fang expedition has uncovered pieces of Ozpin. Fragments of his body. For Ozpin, every part of him is connected to a singular mind. Is this how he's invading my mind?" The Lotus thought outloud, asking a question for which she probably knew the answer.**

**The Tenno paid no mind to that as he proceeded towards the next vault.**

_'So I am somewhat related to Ozpin? Through some sorts of 'fragments' nonetheless...Intriguing.' _thought the Queen of Grimm. She paid no mind to the previous...clips(the one with the zombie outbreak being a small exception).

But as her host of this 'dimensional cinema' put it - every recorded video that is shown to them has actually happened in a different timeline.

Could this one perhaps reveal some secret similar weakness that this Ozpin and her timeline's Ozpin share?

**The next vault required some timed acrobatics and stealth so that Excalibur may reach the data console unseen. Nevertheless, he managed to reach towards the high platform where the console was placed through a vertical ventilation shaft and quickly extracted the necessary data.**

**"This datavault has already been raided. The data is damaged, but there could be a message here. I need another data sample to piece it together." Lotus instructed, to which the Tenno proceeded to the last unchecked datavault.**

**Out of the blue, a holo screen popped on Excalibur's right side, which showed the massive greatsword with it's green glowing core in the centre of the holoscreen. There was also a person behind the greatsword, but was heavily shrouded in the darkness, so there was no way to recognize it by looks.**

**By voice however...**

**"The Tenno hive has corrupted your precepts. With love, I will destroy them and make you right again...**

"O-kay, that was legitimately a bit creepy..." Mercury, out of all people, commented.

**"You will never find them Ozpin." Lotus defiantly said. However, Ozpin simply responded with:**

**"But I see your mind, I already have found them. You owe me their lives."**

**The Tenno paid no mind to what the Sentient said and opened the door that led to an underwater cave.**

**He jumped down and, with a burst of Void energy, materialized the Odonata Archwing alongside the Imperator Archgun on him and proceeded towards the nearest opening that could lead him to the data console.**

"I WANT ONE OF THOSE!" Ruby yellped out of her seat...literally.

"What, the jetpack or the gun?" Yang asked with the standard Xiao-Long smile.

"BOTH!"

_'Wonder how'd she react to the Kaszas, hm?' _Bob thought with an amusing smirk on his face.

**The underwater cave wasn't sparred of the Fang's attempt to put machinery in every corner of the planet, if the ventilators that pushed towards a magnetic field weren't any a indication.**

**Even with that minor inconvenience, the Excalibur found a hole that lead straight towards the datavault door.**

"How convenient." Raven casually noted.

**The Lotus appeared after Excalibur hacked both the door and the data console, informing him that she got the data that they needed and that she can decode the rest of the message, only...**

**"This is bizzare...it's for...me. I need a moment to contact this person. Get to extraction."**

**And so he did.**

**After getting off planet and returning to the ship's main room, the Lotus contacted the Tenno and said:**

**"Ozpin is listening. I will be discreet. The message you uncovered was an offer to help us. I do not trust the person who wrote it, but we're out of options."**

**The Tenno understood her words, and choose to remain vigilant towards their new, mysterious ally. The mission he got was leading him back onto Uranus.**

**And so the Liset flew once again towards the watery planet.**

_'Why do I have a bad feeling about this?' _Ruby thought as she shifted in her seat.

**The moment Excalibur landed on the surface of the metallic platform, a holo-screen of an elderly man with both grey messy hair and beard, alongside a robotic left eye appeared.**

**Said man also looked as he was a victim of some strange skin disease.**

**"Hello Tenno! Are you surprised?**

"Doctor Merlot!" Yang noted, and by her voice - she sounded unpleasantly surprised. Same could be said for the Beacon staff and students altogether.

**"Why? You know I always had my ear to the kennel. Those dogs don't have a clue what kind of bone they've dug up, but I do. Shall I show you? Don't worry, you can trust me...this time." The last part of the sentence was a bit rushed, but Excalibur paid no mind. **

**He just proceeded to break the neck of an unsuspecting Fang sniper as he jumped down the large elevation shaft.**

**As soon as he touched the ground, Merlot appeared once again and said:**

**"I know, I know, our past has been slightly...what...combative? But genocidal invaders from the other system make strange bedfellows, wouldn't you say?"**

"Well, can't say he's wrong. Still doesn't change the fact that our Merlot tried to kill us with his mutated Grimm. This one's no different, I am sure of that." Yang crossed her arms when she finished her sentence.

Arthur Watts never had a high opinion about his...colleague. The mad man single-handedly brought ruin to Mountain Glenn, and for what?

His experimentation with the Grimm yielded no results and were just a waste of effort and time. For all his ambition and his grandeur behavior, Merlot was bested by a couple of children, rookies from Beacon.

That was only but one of the reasons why Salem picked him instead of that failure of a scientist.

**Tenno jumped through an another elevator shaft and finally made it to (under)ground level. He proceeded then to casually cleave a Fang butcher in two.**

**Merlot appeared yet again, probably to annoy the Tenno, and said:**

**"The Sentient Ozpin, nightmare of the Orokin, boogeyman to the Atlas." he let out a small chuckle,**

**"That thing must've put your Lotus in quite a panick for her to be working with the likes of me."**

**The Tenno jumped over a flooded room where electricity was running rampant where water was.**

**"So this Stalker, seems like he's made quite a powerful friend, hasn't he? I wonder what's under that scary, smoky exterior? A heart of gold, perhaps?"**

**Alarms boomed throughout the underwater facility, and a whole platoon of Fang soldiers arrived at Excalibur's location.**

**The Warframe didn't have any trouble dispatching them all with his Braton, and went on to deactivate the alarm on his console.**

**After all that work, he entered a room with an undetwater pool hole beneath it.**

**The Archwing was deployed as soon as the Excalibur entered the water and moved forwards throught the small cave.**

**As soon as he got to a large clearing where several minning machines were digging for minerals, Merlot appeared again, but this time...**

**"Listen Betray- Tenno, you're near the dig site. Of course I could just tell you where it is...but what fun would that be? Keep your eyes peeled...if you have eyes that is."**

Both RWBY and JNPR let out a groan of annoyance.

"Of course he wouldn't tell us straight away! Ugh!" Weiss' eye twitched. She was visibly upset. Blake emotionlessly added:

"You can never have a straight-forward answer with this guy, can you?"

**If it weren't for a fact that Warframes didn't posses a mouth(or that he was technically underwater), Excalibur would've grunted at Merlot's remark. Alas, there was an artifact to be found and a small group of Fang divers to be killed.**

**He started with a small opening near one of the minning machines and went around it a bit.**

**"Getting warmer."**

**But as soon as he took the left turn, the scientist appeared by saying:**

**"Nope, getting colder."**

**As much of annoyance as he was, Merlot was here to help. And now he was definitely NOT helping.**

**Excalibur went to a cave on the far right, and immediatelly got a message:**

**"That's it! You must smell the prize, because I know you can't see it."**

**The Warframe blew a water mine in front of him, which destroyed the rock debris that was blocking the way to the goal.**

**A sight was there to behold as he jumped out of the water.**

**A black bony-like structure enveloped the centre of the sole underwater cave, untouched by any technology whatsoever. The slim shape had a distinct frame, and in the centre of it, a similar green glow eerily resided.**

**"Are these the bones you're looking for, Lotus?"**

**"Yes. This is it, a fragment of...of my brother, destroyed in the Old War. I can use it to see him."**

"Umm, Headmaster? She...she isn't exactly your sister, is she?"

Ozpin turned around to face Ruby and calmly, with reassurance, responded:

"No she isn't Ruby."

As Ozpin faced the screen again, Bob couldn't help but to notice that Ozpin didn't refer her with 'Ms. Rose', as he usually would.

**As soon as Excalibur touched the fragment, the Lotus projected her sight onto him, granting him an ability to see what she sees.**

**Through the sight, both of them saw the Stalker running through an icy planet, leaving corpses of Atlas crewmen and robots in his wake.**

**"I see the Stalker, stronger...Ozpin's voice within him. I see the Reservoir, but I feel confusion. He doesn't know...unless...Oh no-"**

**The Lotus panicked at the very end, but it was all Ozpin needed.**

**"Thank you, sister. Fear has baited you to the snare. What was secret is now known. Your Tenno, their touch. I now see the Womb of the sky. My Shadow now walks the path."**

**The way Ozpin said felt quite self-satisfactory. The Lotus shortly appeared after.**

**"What have I done...? Tenno, get out of there!"**

"The Womb of the sky? What does that even mean?!"

"It's an old phrase Miss Belladona, from a few centuries ago. It is how the people back then called what is now known as - the Moon." Oobleck explained as he took a sip of his coffee.

**And right at that moment, Merlot decided to step in.**

**"Yes, hurry Tenno! But be careful, last time you got close with the Sentients you wiped out an entire civilization...but you don't remember that, do you?**

"What?"

"So the good guys aren't really good at all! I like this already." Mercury said, not minding the confused Ruby who now had doubts about, well...

Pretty much everything.

**The Tenno obeyed Lotus' words and quickly exited the underwater cave and proceeded towards extraction.**

**As he got to the ship's navigation room, Merlot popped on the holo screen and asked:**

**"Tell me, Lotus, what is this Reservoir? Some hidden Tenno weakness?"**

**"Goodbye Merlot, you've earned your favor, we'll take it from here."**

**"Don't think so! I'm here to protect my investment. If that thing manages to destroy the Tenno, then where does my investment go? Now then, where is he?"**

**No matter the steadfast words of the Lotus, it seemed that this ally of circumstances will be sticking around for a bit longer.**

**The Tenno paid no mind, as he saw the mission marker leading him straight to the blue planet Neptune.**

"Neptune? What's next - planet Weiss? Seriously, who does the naming of the planets?!" Yang argued, albeit in a joking manner of course.

"I'm not complaining."

"Of course you aren't, _Neptune_." retorted Weiss.

**The Lotus approached Excalibur as soon as he landed on the heli-pad of the snowy planet and spoke:**

**"When you connected to Ozpin's fragment, Ozpin saw a path to the Reservoir that led through here. He cannot reach it alone, he needs the Stalker to do it for him."**

**He jumped towards the large, tech-based door that led through the Atlas facility and met a few MOAs and Atlas Crewmen on his path.**

**They were easily dispatched.**

**And then Merlot had to appear again.**

**"You must be asking, Merlot, what's in this for you? It's simple really. I scratch your metal back and you scratch mine. All the credits in the system aren't worth half as much as a Tenno owing you a favor!"**

"Judgin' by what we've seen so far, he's pretty right about that." Qrow dully noted.

**After going through several tilesets of the facility, the Excalibur made it to a large, round, golden gate that shone white light everywhere. In front of it was an ancient gold console that resembled more of a keyhole.**

**"A Void gate? These things never made sense to me."**

**However, the white light burnt out in a flash when the Tenno approached the keyhole while leaving a suspicious trail of smoke in it's wake.**

**"You're smart Tenno, you'll figure out how to open it again, won't you?"**

**But as soon as Merlot cut the connection, Ozpin appeared in his greatsword shape, and spoke:**

**"This needle pierces the sky. Salem, will we find the Tenno heart within?"**

**He let out a small chuckle before he continued:**

**"These puppets will not stop me. I will attack in many forms..."**

**A loud, ominous, tone sounded the room, and a Sentient fighter arrived to combat the Excalibur.**

**The Battalyst didn't look anything special at first glance, with the fighter being as slim as a twig. A very strangely shaped twig.**

**Excalibur, however, knew better than to underestimate his opponents, so when the Battalyst curled up and started rotating around, the Warframe immediatelly ran for cover and managed to avoid the barrage of laser beams coming from the Sentient.**

**He started continuously shooting it with his Braton. After one magazine spent, the Battalyst shed a grain of light from itself, and somehow, the shots from his rifle weren't as damaging as before.**

**"Impressive! These Sentient fighters adapt to damage! I'd love to crack one open and see what makes them tick!**

"Adaptation to damage? Ozpin, if these Sentients are given a window of opportunity to come to Remnant, then..."

Ozpin knew that his friend was now on the edge upon seeing this. He IS of course, the General of the Atlas military, and his duty is first and foremost - the security of Remnant.

"James, I understand your concern...but perhaps there is more to this? After all, everything is not without it's weaknessess." Ozpin whispered back, and the General could turn around towards the screen as he started analyzing a potential future threat.

**The Lotus appeared shortly after Merlot and spoke:**

**"The Sentient has adapted to your damage. Surprise them with something new."**

**The Excalibur understood that as clear as day. He immediatelly switched from his standard Braton to the Lex which he modded for both corrossive and blast damage.**

**The Battalyst got weaker after taking a few shots, and Excalibur decided to finish this with his signature Slash Dash.**

**And thus the Sentient was no more, and for some reason - all of Excalibur's health, shields and energy was revitilazed instantly upon the death of the Battalyst.**

**But what piqued Excalibur's interest more is that the Sentient dropped a Void Key upon death.**

**"Incredible! The Stalker has built Void Keys! Use that one to reopen the portal before more Sentient fighters come. The Void is poison to them."**

**The Excalibur immediatelly jammed the key into the portal console, and the gate flared to life once again.**

**"Cross the threshold, go now, the Sentients cannot follow."**

**The gate teleported Excalibur to an Orokin tower, where was met with both Atlas personel and the Corrupted - all of them were shooting each other while the Tenno bullet-jumps past them and exits the portal room.**

"Wow..."

Most of the Beacon students, alongside Haven's, were amazed by the architecture of the long-dead Orokin.

Yang was clearly impressed by the whole design - to her, the combination of white, grey and gold colors was executed beautifully.

Even Cinder raised an eyebrow at the Orokin style.

But if Merlot's connotations were any true - then they were looking at the remnants of a dead civilization.

**The Excalibur activated his Exalted Blade and slashed through platoons of Corrupted - Grineer and Corpus alike who were brainwashed by the Neural Sentry of the Orokin Tower.**

**During the whole one-sided carnage, Merlot decided to drop by in the midst of all things:**

**"Oh... don't you just hate that feeling? Makes my stomach flip. Let's see where you've landed, find a nav console."**

**The Tenno would've grunted at that - it didn't need him to say what he should do!**

**He followed the mission marker on his mini map and entered a room with a nav console and an observatory that peered on...**

**"Sweet profit, the Moon exists? It was...it was in the Void all along? I knew the Lotus was powerful, but this... she erased history! We thought it was destroyed all this time."**

**Merlot let out a small chuckle before continuting:**

**"My my, Lotus, you make a fine villain!"**

**The Sentient Ozpin joined in and said:**

**"And the Reservoir with it. Very clever Salem. Shadow, your path is clear."**

**A wave of Corrupted Grineer footsoldiers arrived at the observatorium, but were quickly dispatched by the Excalibur.**

**"Ozpin has found it. The Reservoir, hidden in the Void, a place the Sentients can never reach. We must do everything to keep it there - it's the only way to keep the Tenno's power alive."**

**"Found the Reservoir? As unpleasant as our past is, I have to ask, I've seen, eh, inside a Tenno, yes, and what I found didn't make sense. Does this Reservoir conceal some great deception?!"**

**"Everything I've done was done to protect them. The Void is forbidden to the Sentients, it's our only protection against them destroying the Tenno. Do not let Merlot distract you from your mission!"**

"Dodging the questions, aren't we? Then again, I'm sure your Headmaster was open to you from the start, aheh."

Roman earned some not-quite-friendly glances from the former Beacon students.

"The secrets that were in the circle would've been too much to bear for the potential future Huntsmen and Huntresses - it would've caused panic and open the risk of being publically announced-"

"And bring on the Grimm, sure, let's go with that," Roman interrupted Ozpin before continuing:

"But from what I've seen and heard - you've done an excellent job at that! Of course, if you don't count the destruction of CCT, Beacon being overrun by those same Grimm, getting killed yourself and guilt tripping a girl into a suicidal standoff that ended in her death! Quite the number of accompishments!"

"You wanna get your face aquainted with my fist, Torchwick?" Yang cracked her knuckles and was half-way to getting up from her seat until Pyrrha decided to speak up:

"What I did was my own choice. I was not under the influence of anyone nor anything - it was my call to fight Cinder."

"Of course it was - keep telling it to yourself." Pyrrha was agape as she heard Bob's words, but before she could retort, her host added:

"Let's soldier on with this, shall we?"

**Merlot spoke immediatelly after the Lotus hung up.**

**"Oh? They don't know the truth either, do they? How sweet, the betrayers get what they deserve...lies from their omnipotent mother!"**

**The Excalibur shrugged off Merlot as a more important message came from the Lotus saying:**

**"I've detected a ship leaving the tower - it's the Stalker, he's on his way to the Moon! You need to find a way to get off this tower and on to the Moon!"**

**The mission marker was updated with new coordinates on his mini-map, and Excalibur followed.**

**It didn't pass long when he stumbled upon an underground energy conversion room with Void energy going through the pipelines at lightspeed.**

**"It seems that this Tower is dedicated to masking the Moon's location in the Void. Why not disable the mask so that claptrap Penny can pick them up? Or is it too complicated for you?"**

"So this is how humans feel when they are offended. Interesting!" Penny spoke in a very jovial manner for an offended person.

**The Tenno followed the objective marker that followed through a nice-looking shaft and into the console room with a view of the Moon.**

**With some quick hacking, a sound emanated from the tower, signaling that the Void mask has been lifted, and the Moon is out of the Void now.**

**"That's it Tenno! Now your mouthpiece Penny can trace your location in the Void!" Merlot spoke with a trace of joy.**

**"Keep talking Orokin named Merlot - your silence soon comes."**

**After Ozpin's remark, another booming sound echoed throughout the tower.**

**"You did it. The Void mask is crumbling." The Lotus noted.**

**Not long after that, a holo-screen of what it seemed to look like a fractured cube appeared on Excalibur's right side. A girl's voice emanated from the cube that spoke:**

**"Operator? How did you get through to me? Don't worry, Penny is on her way now! Preparing for extraction."**

Penny seemed to be focused on 'her' appearance. The scanners in her eyes moved frantically for a couple of seconds before coming to a dead stop.

"This P.E.N.N.Y. AI module is damaged - 23% of precepts are fractured and require repair. She may experience occasional glitches."

"Really? I'm not into the whole programming...thingies, but she, uh - you seem fine!" Ruby responded to Penny's conclusion with a cheery smile on her face. Penny deemed appropriate to return a smile with a smile of her own.

Boy how wrong Ruby would be.

**The green marker on the Tenno's mini map notified of the location of the extraction position, and so did Excalibur followed it through groups of Corrupted foes.**

**"The sky will be as it was meant. The Shadow returns The Moon. The Reservoir swells with Tenno blood. The Old War...finally ends."**

**Excalibur paid no mind to the Sentients words as he reached the extraction point and boarded the Liset.**

"Man, that must be one helluva long grudge to keep." Sun casually commented.

**Tenno waited patiently for further instructions from the Lotus. In the meantime, he had Penny to talk to.**

**Well, not exactly talk - more like constantly listen to her all the time.**

**"The Moon... Somehow, Penny actually remembers the last time I was here. Concern for the Operator is at critical levels!"**

**And Merlot too.**

**"The suspence is killing me! Lotus, you have to tell us your secr- Hey, don't cut me off-"**

**And like that, Merlot was gone.**

**For now at least.**

**"Within The Moon lies the Reservoir, the secret to your Tenno power. But the secret is dangerous, it drove the Stalker to madness. Forgive my deception, I was only trying to protect you from the same fate."**

"Eh, I'd give it an 8 outta 10. Still better than Ozpin's reasons for his tho." Bob commented, ignoring all possible stares on him.

**"Now it is time to protect yourselves** **by ensuring The Moon remains within the safety of the Void.**

**The Tenno understood it completely and set course to the newest location that appeared on navigation.**

**Lua.**

**And so as Excalibur landed on the surface of the Moon, he could see the massive influence the Orokin had on the body that once circled around Earth's orbit.**

**The grey rock was pierced and punctured by white, glowing tree like veins, with buildings of white and gold all around the landing pad.**

**"The Stalker is headed towards the Void Control room. Track thzh-ch-"**

**The Tenno lost the signal of the Lotus and was quickly replaced by Ozpin's.**

**"Collapse the Void Shadow, so that my Fragments may attack. The Tenno hearts will beat their last."**

**The Lotus' signal sprung to life once again, the Lotus herself was visibly panicked by her brother's words.**

**"No! If the Void is collapsed, the Reservoir will be destroyed and you and the rest of the Tenno will be lost. Get to the Void Control room and stop the Stalker!"**

**The Excalibur sprinted through the Orokin hallways only to be met with the Infested, although in their unusual shadow form - perhaps the Stalker's way to stall him.**

**Not that it would do much.**

"The whole structure looks even more beautiful on the Moon, but it looks somewhat..."

"Broken?" Jaune spoke up, to which Weiss responded with:

"Neglected would be a better term."

"Kinda adds a creepiness factor, don't you think?" Yang added.

**When they finally reached the Control room, the Lotus appeared and gave new directives:**

**"I didn't want to have to do this, but the collapse is imminent. If the Reservoir is to survive we need to pull The Moon out of the Void. Help me disrupt the Void Compasses to reorient The Moon."**

**The Tenno went to the center of the Control room and hacked the console.**

**The lights flickered.**

**The Shadow Stalker has arrived.**

**And his gaze was set on the Tenno.**

**"I AM YOUR RECKONING!"**

"Ooh, nice one liner! Fight!" Nora cheered with a fistpump.

**The Tenno decided to take no chances and summoned a Volt Spectre to fight by his side. During the fight, the Lotus provided new intel with his objective:**

**"There are three Void Compasses that steer The Moon within the Void. I will disconnect them from the central system to gain control. Supply them with power from your shields while I finish my task."**

**Excalibur quickly went to the first compass with a swift bullet jump while the Stalker was busy fighting the Volt Spectre.**

**As he could feel the Compass draining his shields, the Sentient spoke once again, albeit in a more angered manner:**

**"Salem, you trust this Orokin blood who would chisel weapons from our bones?"**

"It wouldn't have surprised me if Merlot decided to do that - his ambition knows no reasonable bounds."

"Ambition can only lead you so far, Headmaster - in the end, Merlot's incompetence and lack of foresight were some of the many reasons he ultimately failed and achieved nothing. A man defeated by mere students deserves to be put under the rug and forgotten."

Ironwood took notice at Watts' response to Ozpin, and couldn't help but wonder what happened to the trustworthy, good-natured scientist that he once called - a friend.

_'Just what happened Arthur? What drove you to fight against humanity?'_

**Lotus simply ignored her brother's remark and gave further instructions when the Compass became full.**

**"Keep moving, another Compass needs your shield's power."**

**The Excalibur finally managed to lit up the other two Void Compasses - just in time, since the Volt Spectre ended up being cleaved in half by the Stalker's greatsword.**

**The whole room lit up with gentle blue aura that replenished Excalibur's energy and forced the Stalker to phase out of the room.**

**"The Void Compasses are all disrupted, but there is one more step. Get to the Pendula, hurry!"**

**The Tenno bullet-jumped towards the door that lead towards the Pendula. Suddenly, Merlot appeared, his expression betraying that of a surprise.**

**"What was that?"**

**"Orokin, the noise you make will cease now, and forever."**

**To Ozpin's sentence, Merlot appeared one last time and hastily said:**

**"Uh oh, Ozpin's found me. Sorry I can't stick around to see how this all ends, but I've got to save my own skin, heh. Don't forget our deal Lotus!"**

"Finally - the old man was getting on my nerves!" Yang sighed in relief.

**"These Pendula keep The Moon stable in the Void. Power them down."**

**The Excalibur arrived in the Pendula room, with four Pendulas on each side.**

**However, the Stalker made a brief appearance in the centre of the room - and activated the room's defense mechanisms.**

**As the Stalker dissapeared in a puff of black smoke, a large rotating cube floated near the Tenno. It's red centre began glowing brighter and brighter...**

**"Security eye! Watch out!"**

**The eye shot out a laser layer towards the Excalibur, which he managed to effortlessly dodge. The laser, however, ricocheted off the floor and hit one of the Pendula's, destroying it in the process.**

**"The security eye just destroyed one of the Pendula. Try tricking it into taking out the rest."**

**The Tenno went towards another Pendula, and waited until the Eye shot out again.**

**Rinse and repeat - and all the Pendulas were effortlessly destroyed by it's very own security system.**

Taiyang chuckled and said:

"This actually looks like one of those platformer games I played as a kid."

_'Oh, the irony...' _Bob thought.

**A loud noise followed by intense shaking came after the Pendulas were destroyed.**

**"It's done. The Moon is falling out of the Void. Get to extraction as quickly as possible!"**

**The Excalibur obeyed as he sprinted past the falling debris and the shadow Infested. **

**As he was running towards the extraction, a male voice echoed in his mind...almost as if it were a distant memory.**

**But what does the memory hold?**

**'What they need Cinder, is to be destroyed! They're devils from that hell, not human anymore.'**

**'No Mercury, no more destruction. We could heal them, maybe they are meant to save us.'**

"Mercury? And Cinder?"

"Getting jealous, Emmy?" Mercury teased, which earned him a punch to the shoulder by the green haired thief.

While Bob only spoke:

"Too soon, man..."

**'How can you defend those devils, Cinder, after what they've done to you?!**

**The Excalibur listened as he got onto the Orokin Ayatan spiral elevator.**

**'Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind. They won't hurt anyone, I just need more time.'**

Tyrian let out a big 'HA' at that, as he proceeded to speak his mind:

"Wise and true words indeed! Which is more funnier since it is clear as day that you could've never concocted them yourself!"

Cinder only rolled her eyes at the semi-sane scorpion faunus.

**'Hush my wilted love, I cannot protect you. Tommorow you must renounce before the seven...'**

Two things happened after the end of that sentence.

One - Emerald's cheeks became beet red, for some reason unknown to Mercury and Cinder...and well, to everybody else too.

Second - Roman had one of his maniacal laughters again. Neo snickered alongside him.

Bob couldn't help but laugh alongside the kingpin.

" 'Hush my wilted love...', oh, that...now that one was simply priceless!"

Yang also joined the circle of laughing people that ,fortunately for the two villains, died soon enough.

**The Excalibur noticed several Sentient fighters coming down as the whole place shook to it's very core.**

**The Tenno simply ignored them and dodged their attacks. He managed to arrive at the extraction point and he quickly boarded the Liset.**

**After getting back at the ship and on a considerable distance from the moving Moon, the Excalibur went towards the Navigation room of the ship as he listened to Lotus:**

**"The Moon is back in normal space, but the Reservoir is in more danger than ever. Ozpin will send his fighters and the Stalker is still coming for you. Move now."**

**She didn't had to say more.**

"Any idea what'll be in the Reservoir?"

The whole audience was silent for a moment, and Bob really wanted to hear their answers.

"Anything at all?"

"I believe that we should hold out on any assumptions and wait for-"

Winter never did finished that sentence as she was interrupted by:

"A small dog?"

Everyone turned their eyes on Ruby now.

Safe to say, the little Reaper felt just a little bit uncomfortable.

"Heh, eh...hmh..." Ruby skulked as if she was trying to shrink her head into her shoulders out of embarassement.

"That is actually something I've seen before." Bob spoke, and with that Ruby's eyed relighted,"But no matter that - let's find out the real thing, eh?"

**The Lotus contacted Excalibur as soon as he hit the ground and said:**

**"We saved The Moon from a Void collapse, but Ozpin can attack the Reservoir directly. He must not reach this sacred place."**

**"Shadow, bleed the Reservoir until it's desert dry."**

**On his way towards the Reservoir, the Excalibur was met with a pair of Conculysts. He was better prepared however, with wide array of elemental damage combinations that managed to take down the Sentient fighters without any difficulties.**

**But there was something that unnerved him a bit. A distant voice, one that belonged to Cinder...**

**"This will stop the voices from taking hold. You will have to dream my angel..."**

If she were a lesser woman, Cinder Fall would've felt a little bit awkward now.

Instead of that, she was too focused on the conflict between the apparent brother and sister pair.

Perhaps she will ask her what her true relation with Ozpin is.

She perished those toughts immediatelly - she knew her place. Why should she question a woman who gave her power over something as trivial and unimportant as...that?

**The sweet, motherly voice was soon replaced with the present, rasped, yet somewhat sonorous voice of the Sentient Ozpin.**

**"Lotus, join with me, destroy your shame. Become the one I love, become Salem once more."**

**The voice of Cinder returned, but it's sweet, motherly tone was replaced with one of rage and accusation.**

**"...so shame on you! You Orokin, you're perfect on the outside, but you're rotten... through and through!"**

**"Seven hands raised. For your apostacy, the judgment... is death. Cinder, why?"**

"Fun fact people - the Orokin council, which this Mercury is a part of, has only seven members." Bob spoke in his unusual jolly manner.

"Then that means Mercury also voted for Cinder's death!" Jaune concluded, to which Yang added:

"Weren't they supposed to be all lovey-dovey there? I mean..."

"Who knows? Maybe I was forced to do that. And be real - 6 against 1? Wouldn't change the outcome much, now would it?" Mercury retorted in a surprisingly argumentative manner, to the point of even surprising both Cinder and Emerald.

"Point taken." Yang passively responded.

**The Excalibur moved through an open outside area with a big platform, and in the centre of it - a rotating golden ball, perhaps symbolizing the nearby planet Earth. The Warframe moved downwards to an unlocked door, and proceeded to climb a story of stairs.**

**Mercury's voice echoed in his mind, as if it was a bitter memory.**

**"...it is about the other rejects we consigned to Lua a few years ago. They're calling it...Transference."**

**The Excalibur proceeded to a room with an aged crumbled floor, showing cracked rocks and white, tree like vines sprouting from the floor and reaching the walls.**

**Soon after, the man's voice returned.**

**"...I know we are desperate, Executor, but these aren't Dax soldiers. These are golems possessed by devil minds."**

**The Tenno noticed a few blue, humanoid-shape wisps running about. They weren't solid, so they possessed no threat to him. The wisps were moving around, as if they were showing how the past looked like before the fall.**

**Not that it matters now, anyway.**

"So perhaps these Tenno are some sort of pilots for these Warframes?" James inquired thoughtfully.

"But we still don't know who or what these Tenno are!" Oobleck hastily spoke.

"Look no further kids!"

It was Bob, of course.

**The Excalibur finally reached it.**

**The Reservoir at first glance looked like a fountain, with endless water coming down like a waterfall.**

**That soon changed when a large, golden capsule came from down below.**

**The large capsule then 'bloomed' into several more, and showed it's true core that steadily approached the Warframe.**

**It opened, revealing a tiny, human-like body encassed in a tight black suit, lying - asleep.**

**The 'bed' where the Tenno was sleeping came out of the main capsule and was going slowly going downwards.**

**When it reached it's end, the Tenno fell...and with a static glitch, the Excalibur fell on it's knees.**

**And then everything went to black.**

"Eh?"

Nora's word pretty much described everyone's reaction to the 'climax' of the entire thing.

"Was...was the connection interrupted because they slumped like that?"

"You would be correct, Blake Belladonna!" Penny responded.

"So, that's it?" Neptune asked, a hint of dissapointment in his voice.

**A sound of a heartbeat came along in the darkness, with a voice.**

**"Dream..."**

**Another heartbeat sounded.**

**"Not of what you are..."**

**The third was louder.**

**"But of what you want to be."**

**The static returned and opened the eyes of the Tenno. They dragged themselves slowly, with a great effort. No surprise there, seeing that they were asleep for who-knows-how long.**

**They finnaly managed to reach the Warframe, but before they could collapse of exhaustion, the Tenno touched it. A glowing pulse emanated from the shoulder where the Tenno's hand was, and the Warframe started giving signs of life.**

**The Excalibur twitched a bit before they snagged the Tenno and carried it in bridal style.**

**The Stalker appeared before the two, pointing his sword at them, while the Tenno raised his right arm to defend themselves.**

**But the Shadow hesitated - he could've cut them right there and then, but he lowered his sword and turned his back on them, as if he was...**

**having some doubts?**

**"You hesitate Shadow, but remember your despair. This is your only chance to make it end." Ozpin said, trying to convince the Stalker to act.**

"No, don't listen to him!" Ruby frantically yelped.

"Yeah! There must be an another way!" Yang said alongside her sister.

**The Shadow looked at the empty pod, and then looked at his arm. The latter action was repeated in the same manner by the Tenno.**

**"Your hatred is too weak, Shadow. Mine is strong, my fragments will finish this."**

**The Stalker dissapeared in smoke.**

**And the Excalibur started to move, albeit a bit slower and more clunkier than before. The Lotus presented herself after the revelation and spoke:**

**"Tenno...Operator. You're awake now, but you're more vulnerable than ever. Get back to your ship, now."**

**But any plan does not survive contact with an enemy - the path to extraction was blocked by a Battalyst, which readied itself to blast both the Tenno and the Warframe to nothing. Fortunately, the Lotus arrived with instructions:**

**"You must focus your mind to unleash your true power."**

**And so they did, as a laser errupted from the Tenno's free hand onto the Sentient fighter. The fighter was stunned and quickly destroyed by the pure Void power.**

**This did not stop the arrival of other Battalysts and Conculysts, but were quickly dealt with by the Tenno's awakened Void powers.**

**The Liset awaited them with it's hangar doors wide open, and it quickly landed off The Moon as soon as the Operator entered the ship.**

'That beam...looks very much like the manifestation of the Silver Eye powers. Could it really be...?' Ozpin wondered, as he took a brief glance towards Ruby.

It didn't went unnoticed by Bob.

**Both Tenno and Warframe were currently in the Navigation room. Before they could do anything, the Lotus quickly spoke:**

**"I don't know how much time you have. Descend into the heart of your Orbiter, there you will find the Somatic Link."**

**The Operator proceeded, passing by the Foundry and the Void Relic system to get to the central room of the Orbiter.**

**They however, were not alone.**

**"Stalker! How?!"**

**The Lotus' panicked voice was outweighted by the Stalker's words:**

**"YOUR SENTENCE IS DEATH!"**

**The Stalker teleported quickly between the left and the right side of the Somatic Link chair, shooting red, crescent waves at the Operator.**

**"Stop them Shadow, do not let the child's power rejoin the sky." Ozpin sternly said. And the Stalker obeyed.**

**The Tenno instinctevly reacted with short bursts of their own power to negate the waves while moving towards the Somatic Link.**

**When they arrived close enough, the Lotus hastily gave instructions:**

**"Focus Tenno! Use your energy to breathe life into the Somatic Link!"**

**And so they did, but where met with a violent blast from it that knocked the Tenno from Excalibur's grasp.**

**The Tenno tried to get up, but to no avail. They tried to reach their Warframe again, but the Stalker got in the way. The child recoiled back, and started shaking in fear.**

**The Stalker looked upon the kneeling, lifeless Warframe and touched it with the greatsword.**

**"No self, no sense, no death. Just a metal puppet, dangling on Tenno strings."**

**The Stalker's gaze was then laid on the helpless child.**

**"Only the Tenno's death will end your despair."**

**The greatsword was then plunged into the Warframe, while the Stalker did not leave sight of the small Tenno. Not even for a moment.**

Some of the audience was intrigued by what will happen next, as there was now no sure way to predict the situation. The others were merely holding their breaths, and hoping that it won't come to the worst possible scenario.

**The Stalker got closer to the Tenno and crouched as he was looking at them.**

**"All your dread-long life, you've waited for this moment...but you're asking yourself...was I one of these wretched things?" Ozpin spoke the last part with venom.**

**The Stalker grabbed the Tenno by the throat and rised with them, lifting up the child with ease as they were helplessly dangling of their feet.**

**They were at his mercy now.**

**And Ozpin knew that.**

**"You know the answer...you still hate them, you still hate...yourself."**

The whole room was silent at the revelation at the Stalker's true nature.

Which begged a question:

Should they dismiss the Tenno and trust Merlot's words? That they've destroyed an entire civilization by themselves? That they murdered people?

Or that the Tenno are merely children by the looks of it, and were looked down as devils only because they were different?

Blake knew all to well what was like to be treated differently by the majority. But does that trully justify the lenghts that Ad...no, the White Fang went to? Does that trully justify the Tenno's actions, if the crazed Doctor's words were any true?

Or is she merely jumping to conclusions again?

**But then an anomaly happened, one that neither Stalker nor Ozpin could ever predict.**

**The Warframe moved on it's own, grabbing the two sides of the blade that was still inside him.**

**This immediatelly caught Stalker's attention, who released the grip on the Tenno, dropping them on the floor.**

**"What is this?" Ozpin emphasized every word that described his surprise.**

**The Stalker never made to Ozpin on time, as the Warframe managed to break one of the blades from the hilt, which caused Shadow to be suspended in midair.**

**"ShaaDdoow, proOotTect MeEeee..."**

**Ozpin's voice became more gutural and silent with each passing second until it stopped when the Warframe fully detached one of the War's blades.**

**Stalker vanished in a ray of light, blinding the Tenno and sending them unconcious.**

"Did-did they won? What happened? What did-?"

"Patience, my dear Nora, patience. All will soon be clear - in about 3 seconds." Bob spoke, and Nora remained silent.

**[PLAY: Warframe OST - The Second Dream]**

**The unconcious Tenno was then picked up and brought closer towards the chair by Lotus, in her actual physical form.**

**As they got close, the Somatic chair responded to the Tenno's presence, wrapping the child in blue light speckles as it moved them to a more comfortable sitting position.**

**When it was all finished, a wave of gentle Void energy swept across the ship, rocking the lifeless Excalibur a bit, yet not too much.**

**The Operator brought their hands to their mask and unzipped it, revealing their true identity. It was...**

"RUBY?!" All of the students (plus some adults) unisonly spoke in surprise.

"ME?!" Ruby joined them soon after.

"Mercury was right all along! It IS a devil!" Roman said with a snarky grin on his face, which gave him two things - a fistfull of popcorn from all students thrown at him, and a thumbs-up from Bob.

**The young, silver eyes looked upon the tall figure of Lotus, who spoke:**

**"My child, so beautiful to behold. How do you feel?"**

Ruby couldn't help but cough a little at that. Salem, however, paid no mind to that.

'Man, this is awkward...' Ruby thought.

**"I'm confused... I thought I was..." Ruby, as if she didn't said a word in ages(which she actually didn't), sounded a bit raspy. She was cut off by the Lotus who said:**

**"I know. Forgive me. This is who you really are. A Tenno. More than human... but once a child like any other. What do you remember?"**

'So in the end, they are only children with powers. A bit dissapointing, I must say, but still - intriguing.' Arthur thought, his jaw rested on his fingers.

**"I remember everyone was laughing outside an airlock. This kid had a boy by the throat. I didn't think it was funny at all."**

**"Memories. From your time aboard the Zariman Ten Zero, before the Void-Jump accident. It was years before the ship was recovered. It was drifting dead in space, all the crew gone... except the children."**

**Ruby sighed deeply as she recalled her past memories:**

**"We were dangerous, broken. Every time they tried to fix us, someone always got hurt. I wish I could have saved them. I wish I could have taken their fear away."**

Both Yang and Taiyang could only watch at that Ruby. If they could've, they would've hugged that Ruby. Heck, even Ruby wanted to hug the other her.

Qrow only wondered - what happened to them? Where were they when Ruby needed them? Were they a part of the crew that was lost?

So many questions, not many answers.

**"The Orokin were afraid of you. The Void had changed you and you couldn't control it, no one could. They were about to destroy the orphans of Ten-Zero but Cinder... she loved you, she found a way..."**

It was Cinder's time to cough a bit when she heard that.

Love - what a needless concept.

Love was only nature's trick to make humans reproduce easier, nothing more, nothing less.

She was above all those trivial, primal urges - she was Cinder Fall, a Maiden with powers!

Until that cursed Branwen dropped her down a pit...

She will thank Bob for bringing her back to her normal, uncrippled state. And when she finally gets her rightfull powers back - she'll deal with him quickly and painlessly.

He deserved that much.

**"She confronted them even when she knew what it would cost her. Blinded and sick by her work with us... yet in her heart, stronger than all of us."**

**The Lotus spoke with a bit of disdain this time:**

**"The Orokin murdered Cinder - used her work to create 'Transference'. Your mind - projected into a surrogate, strong enough to withstand your power. It felt like waking up, but it was just a lucid - second dream"**

**" It was a shadow underneath what we did. That sensation of being a victim, of being helpless. I took up the sword to protect those in need."**

**"And so you became Tenno. Serving the Orokin... but bound by honor."**

**The Lotus stepped a bit closer and added:**

**"Here in the Orbiter Transference will be even stronger. Command the Warframes... Make whole, this shattered world you've been given."**

**Ruby now looked determined, and responded:**

**"I will, Lotus."**

**To that, the Lotus said:**

**"Now we fight on two fronts, my child. The war without..."**

**"And the war within."**

**TO BE CONTINUED...**

* * *

**Inspired by: "The Second Dream" from Warframe**


End file.
